6otM 08 After Actions Report

[lqwertyp]

After giving Gotm7 a go but being send to valhalla after less than 20 turns, I wanted to give this one a go.

I won in turn 193 with a score of 809, 1320 AD Domination Victory

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
I settled 13 myself (some in the end of the game with captured settlers) and captured 23 (all of 'em except for one Norwegian city)
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I prioritized encampments (since early production was low), Commercial hubs (to pay for my army and navy), Venetian Arsenal, Frigates and Ironclads.
Policywise I went for extra gold in commercial hubs, extra gold from trade routes, the less upkeep card, extra amenities and 100% naval building bonus.
- Did you bother with religion?
Only got the pantheon for extra cog's on marsh and floodplains since there were so many around the starting location.
- Did you bother with Culture?
Not actively. Build no theaters, only monuments. Captured some theater districts in the end.
- Were City-States helpful?
They were, but I wasn't pushing for extra envoys. Put envoys for extra gold in amsterdam, jakarta and lisbon and put envoys in the science CS. Also put some envoys in the military CS for cogs in encampments.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
This was only my first game on emperor and it was quite easy, especially after the Venetian Arsenal and Terracotta army (nobody build it, so I figured I would).
The start was isolated, for which I needed to adapt a little bit. It took a while for my first war (against spain around turn 100), but after this it was steamrolling the whole map.
This many luxuries for Aztecs makes them a little bit OP I think
- Did you enjoy the game?
I really did! I'm looking forward to the next GOTM! Also got the achievements for the +16 attack bonus for Aztecs, which I really liked.
- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Usually I'm a peaceful player, but this time it was all about the sword!

 

[Monthar]

Turn 217 Domination

Frigates rock

 

[isopaha]

Turn 191 domination.

Settled my own continent quite densely and waited until frigates to start war mongering. My frigate navy was way too strong, they do like 50 damage to cities while taking 4-8 damage from city bombardments. Enemies didn't have a single frigate, just a few caravels and otherwise ancient naval units. My science was quite strong all game and culture decent, but religion I skipped like many others.

Could probably have won 20-30 turns earlier if I understood that just 3 frigates can take any in this game. I was initially DoWed myself (the usual double) and two others joined in making it 4vs1, but the AI could not do anything in a naval map, so I took all of their capitals and finished with India and Egypt. All cities could be bombarded from the sea and only 2 of them had to be captured by a land unit.

AI was also very lazy to build wonders, so I got a few of them at later eras.

 

[whacker]

t104 DV, 300 BC, score of 250.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
I settled 4 cities + capital and conquered Vilnius and Preslaw early on after i used them as worker farms with my eagle warriors.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I beelined for mercenaries and square rigging to get frigattes as fast as possible.

- Did you bother with religion?
No.

- Did you bother with Culture?
I got monuments in every city and the godess of the open sky pantheon. (the pantheon came very late though)

- Were City-States helpful?
Not particularly, Vilnius and Preslaw were useful for fast craftsmanship and production until i captured them both.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Isolated start again. I used a worker from Vilnius to scout west and discovered India. I also rushed 2 galleys to find city states and the other AI`s capitals.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Not as much as the other GOTM`s, the Aztecs are clearly overpowered and island plates + emperor makes frigate conquest too easy. It was still fun to optimize.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Love.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Settled 3 cities, produced 6 archers + 2 warriors, captured India then moved on towards Russia.
Produced another similar army and send them to Spain while producing some quadriremes, chariots and a settler.

The plan was to capture those 2 while teching/culting for mercenaries, stirrups and machinery, upgrade my first 2 armies to xbows in Spain and Egypt. while settling close to Norway to upgrade my chariots there to knights. Then use the 3 upgraded armies to simultaneously capture the remaining 3 enemies.

The plan failed at conquering Spain and Russia with just archers. (it was around T80 now) Normally on a land map where you can move your army in a close group and carefully use the terrain to your advantage it would be quite possible to do some conquest with archers by turn 80, the enemy did not have more advanced units. But having to land on their shores, being sitting ducks after landfall and not having enough squares to land the whole army proved too much to overcome.

Even if that had worked, i wouldnt have beaten 104. (With the upgrade of my first 2 armies expected at turn 88-90, i was aiming for 105-110)
I also would have been very dependant on the amount of gold + GPT in peace deals as i was going to only have about 1000 gold on my own strength for upgrading those 3 armies (18 units)

So the plan was too minimalist.
Should have built up a bit more of an empire before war.

 

[aba aba aba]

T299, 801
Aztec can snowball really well, builder spam made my first 3 cities developed quite fast. Still the AIs dun know how to fight a war...especially on water. I forgot to save my T100
- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 7 or 8, captured... a lot
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
just normal, emphasised on sci for the early stage then..anything that looks ez to research.
- Did you bother with religion?
yeap, got a religion...did not use it...
- Did you bother with Culture?
nope...who cares abt culture
- Were City-States helpful?
Vil is ok, I got 3 lux by taking the city
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Did not read the intro, I tot there should be 8 players...
- Did you enjoy the game?
Aztec is as good as i imagined, quite a good game

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

@whacker Again breaking records by a far margin. Congratulations!

 

[dthompson32]

Turn 183 Domination Victory

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

I spammed out settlers around T80 settling a total of 7 cities plus my capital. I took another 12 from the AI

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Priority in the early game was getting up slingers then turning them into archers. Vilnus had a tough location to get to with slingers and I needed the range. Plus it was spamming warriors. That turned out good since I was able to turn them into builders.

After that I started teching up to allow my units to get into the water, once able I headed them over to Delhi. I only had archers and eagle warriors, but they were enough to take the city, even with walls up. After that the priority was getting industrial zones, building a small navy, and getting upgrades. Trade routes were important for gold, especially at the end since I had to upgrade units so many times. I took the final capital (Madrid) with a musket that started as an eagle and knocked down its walls with a battleship that started as a quad.

If I did it again I would build a larger navy and less archers (upgraded to field cannons).

- Did you bother with religion?

No, other than getting open sky as a pantheon. I had several holy cities at the end, and never bothered to find out what they did. In general I always ignore religion, it is never very helpful and a royal pain fighting off missionary spam.

- Did you bother with Culture?

Only to get up to governments that allow more cards. I needed money for upgrades, so needed slots for 50% upgrades and gold bonuses.

- Were City-States helpful?

Vilnus with its luxuries was very helpful as my 3rd city. After that I just sat on my envoys until I found others. I don't think I found my third CS until after turn 100. Once I met them, I had 8 envoys saved up which helped with the 2gpt per envoy card.

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

I was a little inefficient on my order of battle. I started with India, then Russia, then Egypt. I was going to sail my troops north to London, but found myself unable to embark because of all the cliffs. In the end I decided to take out Norway first so wasted 10 turns at least heading northeast.

Norway had a ridiculously tough position to get troops onto. If I could do it again I would have build more frigates instead of archers>crossbow>field cannon. Once Norway was cleared, London and Madrid were easy.

I lost a lot of time being unable to sail from one side to another. I finally planted a city in the one spot that allows ships to get through.

I thought the Venetian Arsenal would be important, but it was still 20 turns from completion when I won.

- Did you enjoy the game?

Very much, it is my first time playing Aztec and they were more powerful than I anticipated.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?

Everyone hated me, the other civs DOWed me within a few turns of meeting me the first time. Egypt was down to one city and refused to make a peace treaty without getting back her capital. I should have just wiped her out.

 

[Fnarfle]

1907AD, score of 846, Domination victory

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
I settled 14 cities, captured all the capitals plus 2 extra cities from India and Russia and one from Norway (to reach their capitals - they were in the way)

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I'm not generally a Domination-type player, but I beelined for early musketmen to start my attacks

- Did you bother with religion?
No.

- Did you bother with Culture?
I got monuments in every city and the godess of the open sky pantheon. (the pantheon came very late though)

- Were City-States helpful?
I ended up with six Suzerian states without trying to hard, so they didn't hurt

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Isolated start was annoying - it took me too long to actually locate someone to attack, thus the longer game

- Did you enjoy the game?
It was my first GOTM, so I just enjoyed it. It seemed a bit easy - I was never under any stress of losing (although the Spanish came relatively close to a religious victory by the end of the game).

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Love.

 

[dthompson32]

I've become obsessed with Whacker's T104 win. I keep replaying this trying to find ways to optimize the build/tech order and get to Frigates faster. I got a T133 win now after a couple of attempts, but there are still some Civ 6 mechanics I still don't understand, I am sure.

This is a great GOTM for exploring how to get faster wins, since you can get a good idea if a strategy is working by turn 50 or so.

I think the mistake I am making is with the early build order, I can't find the right order between the monument, a builder, slingers, and the first settler. You need them all right from the start.

Most fun I've had with the game in months though

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Indeed, whacker's games tend to do that with you. I'm still wondering how I'd manage to do that myself, or emulate his turn 148 Science Victory.

 

[CPWimmer]

LOL! An effective 45 STR Eagle Warrior (+17 w/ toys) takes Madrid on Turn 219 for the win with 672 pts!

Spoiler :

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
26 (11 founded 15 captured) (+2 captured settlers sleeping at the end of the game)

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
nothing out of the ordinary
TECH: Industrialization, combat techs & naval techs culminating eventually in Steel, Combustion and Electricity
CIVIC: Exploration (Merch Republic), Mercantilism(Triangular Trade), Nationalism (corps), Natural History (unnecessary Zoos) & Mobilization (Levee en Masse)

- Did you bother with religion?
Lady of the Reeds Pantheon was very nice early. +1 Cog in Marsh, Oasis and Floodplains provided a lot of early production in my first 4 cities after Tenochtitlan. After that I ignored Religion, which is pretty common for me. I never built a holy site. Egypt founded the final religion on Turn 88.

- Did you bother with Culture?
Some, I had a lot of monuments but the only theater districts I owned were those pre-built in captured cities. I was a full era ahead by the end of the game, however.

- Were City-States helpful?
Meh, the normal bonuses were good, but it wasn't a major strategic influence of the game. I was suzerain with Brussles, Valetta, Amsterdam & Mohenjo Daro in the end game but not due to any focused attempt. Amsterdam was the only one with 6 or more envoys. I left Vilnius around for a long time for the +2 culture until they eventually DoWed me as the ally of some Major Civ I was at war with. Then their Silk, Salt and Truffles had to be mine!

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
A few. Of course the main surprise already discussed in the 1st hundred turns thread of our big empty landmass. The fact that my Eagle Warrior was 45 Strength and able to take the final capital for the win! Everyone was +17 STR due to all natural luxuries + toys! Now that was a fun (and perhaps over powered) surprise. I had left that one ancient unit around for generating builders, after ignoring this feature for the first 100 turns due to forgetting it worked on City State units. I was also surprised by proving to myself for a second game now that Siege Towers are the bomb. And yes, like battering rams, they work with Caravels and embarked units just fine. Another surprise: i pre-ordered the game but never bothered to play as the Aztecs until now. That's probably due to my preference for being a builder.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes and No. I did enjoy the overall game play (because I always do with Civ) but I came to an interesting realization about myself: I am not a cut throat player. I certainly enjoy playing 6otM, but I am not specifically looking for a "fast win" every time, and I think I'm OK with that. I didn't go to war nearly as early as I should have in terms of optimum efficiency. Heck, I didn't even go to war when I was first provoked by Egypt and Spain settling on the edges of MY Island! It wasn't until Norway and Russia joint DoW'ed me on turn 112 - and even then I fought only defensively until finally formally DoW'ing Spain on t137 after denouncing them when they built a 2nd city on my island. From there it was a Knight/Caravel/Siege Tower/Field Cannon rolling army/navy of death (with eventual upgrades) for the rest of the game.

Even after that slow build up to war, I made obvious choices that I knew were sub-optimal from a fastest win perspective. There were times where I went for non-capital cities that were clearly non-essential to the win. I slowly built the Venetian Arsenal (t180 finish) and although the few extra naval units were fun they weren't necessary at all. This certainly didn't fell like it was an optimal route to take. Also I could have easily sustained a successful 2-front war but didn't bother. I only conquered in one direction; India->Egypt->Norway->Russia->England->Spain.
I'm sure I could have come in under 200 turns just by being more aggressive, and probably even around t175 if I had played more efficiently as well.

 

[dthompson32]

Indeed, whacker's games tend to do that with you. I'm still wondering how I'd manage to do that myself, or emulate his turn 148 Science Victory.

Heh, just finished a T123 win. I'm convinced the trick is beelining to frigates with very little distraction, while pushing up the science output. I need more cities and campuses.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I've become obsessed with Whacker's T104 win. I keep replaying this trying to find ways to optimize the build/tech order and get to Frigates faster. I got a T133 win now after a couple of attempts, but there are still some Civ 6 mechanics I still don't understand, I am sure.

This is a great GOTM for exploring how to get faster wins, since you can get a good idea if a strategy is working by turn 50 or so.

I think the mistake I am making is with the early build order, I can't find the right order between the monument, a builder, slingers, and the first settler. You need them all right from the start.

Most fun I've had with the game in months though

Surely the monument should not be part of your opening build.
Also, the boosts for the early techs are nice but not important enough to prioritize in any way over getting your cities up ASAP.

So your priorities should be:

-Getting settlers out ASAP. Do whatever it takes for this, every turn counts.
-Conquer India. He didnt write about it, but im quite sure he conquered india long before frigates. Not doing so would be a huge waste.

Secondary priorities are too benefit those first 2 priorities:
-kick free workers out of those CSes.
-Use those both to improve 2 or 3 production tiles (producing settlers will keep your capital that small, so no need for more) and forest cuts.

I dont know the chance of worker captures, so i dont know how big is the priority of fighting the CSes. Also, luck plays a role there. I got 0 workers out of 3 unit kills against india myself.

Normally conquest is vastly better than settlers and thus building units to conquer the neighbours should be done before settlers. With the travel time i think its a tough call here how many settlers you should build before building your archers for that. Getting free workers will be huge here. A bunch of forest cuts can build you an army very quickly.

I could imagine this working very well:
-Get 1 slinger and upgrade it to archer, use it together with your warrior to fight the CS and get a free worker while building a settler.
Keep building settlers in capital, use the worker to cut forests and turn them into more archers in whatever city forests are available. Conquer india while your capital effectively never took a break from building settlers. This does of course require you to be lucky to get that early worker. But getting a top GOTM result always requires luck. It might even require the luck of getting 2 workers very early.

 

[whacker]

It has been a while since i finished the game so all information are to be taken with a grain of salt, but i will do a quick recap:

BO: scout, settler, 2xeagle warrior, slinger, trader,2xsettler, campus with worker charges, monument, encampment. In the 2. city 3x slinger, settler, Pyramids, momument, campus. In the other 3 cities: monument, campus. In coastal cities i chopped the ships with the 100% card. All cities got an additional builder with ilkum into serfdom.
I always try to get up a 2. city with good production asap to make double use of agoge and the 50% settler policy.

Heurekas:
I got every eureka on my way to Mercenaries, except craftmanship, which i rushed with the help of Vilnius. I also chopped a watermill in Vilnius to get the heureka. Getting Heurekas is the single most important thing to get after you have your core cities up and running when aiming for a quick finish.

I DOWed Vilnius ~t30 and farmed builders for around 15 turns (i think i got 6), then i took it to get the watermill as there was nothing else to build (i finished all districts with builders, thats why i built the pyramids - before completion i left all builders at 1 charge).
Afterwards i did the same with Preslav, got 3 builders.

My general plan was to found coastal cities with a lot of stone and wood to chop all the ships and finish the districts with builders. I also got +3 campus adjacency or more in every new city, because thats the only thing that speeds up frigates as you can`t get the heureka for it.

Because i wanted to know the capitals asap to develop a conquest order i rushed 2 galleys. Knowing where your enemies are is even more important than finishing a tech 2-3 turns earlier.

I conquered India around t75 and only used it to chop more ships. Then i sent the first frigates to the most distant campitals while using the ships from India for Egypt and Nidaros.

I also got some chariots - knights, just in case there was a inland capital. In the end they were not necessary.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I think my mistake might have been building up Slingers in my first city to take out Vilnius instead of expanding. I left out Preslav because I thought it wouldn't benefit me; they barely had 2 land units, the rest were ships, so I couldn't even make Builders from their units.

Also, I liked your Scout > Settler opening. Did you decide on that because it was an Island Plates map?

 

[whacker]

Also, I liked your Scout > Settler opening. Did you decide on that because it was an Island Plates map?

I always do that, except when an AI finds me very early/is close by.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

It has been a while since i finished the game so all information are to be taken with a grain of salt, but i will do a quick recap:

BO: scout, settler, 2xeagle warrior, slinger, trader,2xsettler, campus with worker charges, monument, encampment. In the 2. city 3x slinger, settler, Pyramids, momument, campus. In the other 3 cities: monument, campus. In coastal cities i chopped the ships with the 100% card. All cities got an additional builder with ilkum into serfdom.
I always try to get up a 2. city with good production asap to make double use of agoge and the 50% settler policy.

Heurekas:
I got every eureka on my way to Mercenaries, except craftmanship, which i rushed with the help of Vilnius. I also chopped a watermill in Vilnius to get the heureka. Getting Heurekas is the single most important thing to get after you have your core cities up and running when aiming for a quick finish.

I DOWed Vilnius ~t30 and farmed builders for around 15 turns (i think i got 6), then i took it to get the watermill as there was nothing else to build (i finished all districts with builders, thats why i built the pyramids - before completion i left all builders at 1 charge).
Afterwards i did the same with Preslav, got 3 builders.

My general plan was to found coastal cities with a lot of stone and wood to chop all the ships and finish the districts with builders. I also got +3 campus adjacency or more in every new city, because thats the only thing that speeds up frigates as you can`t get the heureka for it.

Because i wanted to know the capitals asap to develop a conquest order i rushed 2 galleys. Knowing where your enemies are is even more important than finishing a tech 2-3 turns earlier.

I conquered India around t75 and only used it to chop more ships. Then i sent the first frigates to the most distant campitals while using the ships from India for Egypt and Nidaros.

I also got some chariots - knights, just in case there was a inland capital. In the end they were not necessary.

Thanx for replying and explaining your ways Whacker !

When i said boosts are not important enough to prioritize over getting out settlers, i was mostly targetting the builder that many players seem to build super early, presumably to get the 3 improved tiles boost and the slinger presumably to get the archery boost. I think those are not always worthy and should depending on the situation, often be foregone in favor of either faster conquest or a faster settler. In this case it seems you prioritized the faster settler. You do say you got all eurekas, but without an early worker i would assume that does not include the "work 3 tiles" one ? Other than that i also always get pretty much every boost in the first 2 ages except a few (you cant tell people to declare war on you, building city walls and encampments is often just to expensive to do only for the boost)

Interesting that you open with slinger-settler as a standard. I open with 4x slinger into archers as a standard. After finishing my next GOTM where i am playing in nice exact 20 turn sessions, ill replay it and try your opening and compare the turn 20 and 40 saves.

Do you remember what turn you got square riggings and mercenaries ?
How many quadririmes did you roughly upgrade and how many frigattes did you build manually ?
How did you go about getting the needed science and culture, prioritize campusses and/or monuments ?

 

[dthompson32]

Thanks for the explanation! I've gotten some finishes in the 120s trying to settle the same locations. But I've been building slingers first instead of settlers.

I'll give it a try with the different order and see how it goes.

 

[RATANA]

Hey everybody first time here. Domination victory turn 355, score 739.

Basically tried to dominate with having a superior army than everyone else didn't really work for a quick victory but was lots of fun, took the two city states to the south and started spreading north with about two or three cities, tried to attack India around t120 but failed so just kept building science and commerce and tried industrialism and steam roll with infantry, i didn't utilize a big navy which sucks, because i had the venitian arsenal. No one declared war on me as i was too advanced fighting crossbows with infantry. It took a while to capture all the capitals which were the only cities i attacked or kept besides the two city states and a small city Spain put on my continent, Russia held the staunchest defense so i nuked Saint Petersburgh, Nidaros was last to go though due to access. Bombed it with an aircraft carrier and rolled in with tanks.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

Settled about 7 cities on my own, took the two city states to the south.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Focused research on military and navy

- Did you bother with religion?
no

- Did you bother with Culture?
not really had one or two theater districts

- Were City-States helpful?
yes for supplying builders early game

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
no

- Did you enjoy the game?

yes game was great