6otM 10 After Action Report

[Chips]

Science Victory Turn 363, 1942AD

Going into this game, I knew that the war cart could lead to an early domination victory, but I decided to try to use the Ziggurat to try to get an early science boost towards an ultimate science victory. I also decided up front that I would not declare war and instead try to build alliances via diplomacy. Generally speaking, I was successful. I achieved rocketry somewhere around turn 250 and I had strong alliances with the Russia, Brazil and Scythia. The problem was I did not have the production to churn out space race projects quickly. I spent about 100 turns completing the 5 space race projects with 2 spaceports and some help from great people. During this time (because I had nothing to do except wait), I played around with nukes and joined a war against the Aztec with Russia breaking my initial commitment to no war, but it was fun.

- How many cities did you settle or capture? Settled 8, captured 2 via my "fun wars" near the end

- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Built many Ziggurats early to boost science. Tried to get as many eurekas as I could to progress quickly along the tree. Generally researched tech where I had the eureka. Once I got close to rocketry, I beelined for that and then prioritized the tech needed for space race projects.

- Which VC did you opt for? Science

- Did you bother with Religion? I did not get a religion, but was converted by my neighbours.

- Did you bother with Culture? It was not a focus area.

- Did you bother with Science? Yep. See above.

- Were City-States helpful? Helpful for trade and some bonuses. They weren't needed for war.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? I was surprised how much production was needed to complete the space race projects vs how much my cities could crank out. Once I started the projects, I knew I was in for a long wait so I started warring against the Aztec. Also, Spain declared war against Brazil who I had a defensive pact with so I got drawn into that conflict. My military was small but advanced due to my science focus. This allowed me to easily defend against Spain, help Brazil capture one Spanish city, and capture one other Spanish city for myself. I likely could have completely destroyed Spain, but because war was not my focus, I accepted their generous peace agreement.

- Did you enjoy the game? Yes. I'm not the most experienced civ player so I appreciated the lower difficulty level. Thanks to the GOTM organizers for putting this together!

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

Domination victory after 141 turns

From the start I aimed at a domination victory. I am not familiar with other types of victory conditions yet. The start was good. I think, but I waited far too long with making my move on the second continent, which I discovered to be accessible quite early. I had severely overestimated the other civ's capacity for resistance. In the end, I think I could have won even without an invasion force, but just by levying the units of one or two city states on the other continent. I had lots of envoys as a result of clearing lots of barb camps, and plenty of free scouts too.

 

[Joatman]

Domination victory, Turn 209, Score 610, 1480AD

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 6, captured 20. Tried to settle as little as possible, only for strategic reasons.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Basically same as others did above...went on a genocidal blitzkrieg of war cart fury. Would have done a little faster but ran into some bad luck with barbs here and there early on. Built a crap-ton of warcarts right off the bat, 5 or 6, then went right after Russia (how dare they fwd settle me!). Bought a scout, that was a waste never found any other huts or got any more city state bonus envoys. Built a settler for a coastal city to start ocean crossing techs. As soon as my carts were healed from Russian war, went after Brazil and Spain, they went down quick. Healed up, upgraded carts to knights and built Terra Cotta Army, built a couple catapults, then destroyed Scythia. By then I could cross, but simultaneously found that I didn't really need techs to do it...Built a war hub city on the east coast of new continent. Built Alhambra for extra war civic. Sailed over opposite ocean with an armada of knights that would rival the crusades, to surprise Arabia (Coincidence?) and destroy them. Declared on Congo and Aztec pretty much same turn. Congo put up more of a fight but brought them and Aztec down in together in 9 turns. Game over man.

- Which VC did you opt for?
Domination, IMO the only way to go with Sumeria on this difficulty and game setup for a fun game.

- Did you bother with Religion?
Not at all. Waste of time IMO with a rush victory and on this difficulty. Made sure to get Forge pantheon early to help with war cart prod, but that's it.

- Did you bother with Culture?
Not at all.
- Did you bother with Science
Yes, but only to make sure I had what units I wanted early as possible. Mainly to upgrade the carts to knights and catapults to bombards for when the others smartened up and built walls.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes, when I wasn't building units and committing genocide I was mainly focusing on city sate quests to make sure they wouldn't be a nuisance during wars, and the bonuses are always nice.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Not really...some barb camps having musketmen and pikemen kinda early was annoying, but that's it.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Very fun! I hadn't really tried that much of a rush combat much before, only with Scythia once to see how quick I could take everyone down with the double horse archer tactic.

 

[curtb12345]

Turn 81 - Domination

- How many cities did you settle or capture? Built none capture most of the ret
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? I assumed war carts before walls was the quickest and needed to get across the ocean so worked on getting ship building first and looking for a coast passage - if there was no coast passage I was going to have major miscalculation.
- Which VC did you opt for? Domination with easy level and war carts
- Did you bother with Religion? No
- Did you bother with Culture? No
- Did you bother with Science Yes for a few turns
- Were City-States helpful? Not really
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? So many barbs. I am going to play again and try getting more of them to see if I pop more gold for earlier war cart or maybe a help for science
- Did you enjoy the game? Yep

 

[kcd_swede]

Domination t171 1100AD score 524 (Warren Harding)
I figured for my skill-set I should play against the weakest aspect of the AI in order to finish as fast as possible. I am pleased with the result, for me this was blazing fast for so many opponents on distant map. Naval was not used, Just kill, upgrade, wash rinse repeat. Can't say it was a nail-biter, but I had a lot of fun getting things working as I intended without interruptions.

Overebuilt, as usual. But it was fun. And for me, fast and furious. But I think in another open vc game I would aim for a vc that requires a bit more thought to finish by t171.

 

[bartaxe]

Domination Turn 166

Took out Russia, Brazil, Spain and 3 city states before T100. Scythia offered me iron for peace. So maybe a little exploitative.. Conquered the rest with upgraded war carts and 1 battering ram.
Build order, war carts (plenty), then Commerce districts, caravans and settlers. Settlers were not really needed. Bought more knights along my way through arabia and aztecia.

A battering ram is surprisingly useful.

Thanks for setting this up.

 

[afireinside]

- Which VC did you opt for?
Domination

- Did you bother with Religion?
Yes. It was a waste though. I wanted to purchase Libraries with Faith, but only built 1 campus all game. I realize that Giglamesh is about all Ziggurats in the early game *instead* of campus/theater districts. I assume he'll fizzle out when trying to convert that science/culture into production/districts, late game. (It's almost like Fireaxis is creating a "Golden Age" for each civilization through their perks, not through an actual "Golden Age")

- Did you bother with Culture?
Meh.

- Did you bother with Science
Yes but it was futile. Sumeria's golden age is clearly *before* campus districts should be built.

- Were City-States helpful?
Encampments = +1 Trade Route

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
It's always pretty cumbersome moving Seige Towers around continents late game to get every capital. I still went with domination though.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Civ for life fam

 

[Morningcalm]

Domination Victory, Turn 108 (200 BC). (as many appear to have noticed, it's the obvious option when you have War Carts at your disposal).
Score: Dan Quayle (They really should fix the victory scoring so that an early victory gets bonus points, as in Civ IV).

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Don't recall, to be honest. Most nearly all my cities were captured. I did settle a city right next to Kongo's capital so I could heal my units after their march across the seas to Kongo (movement takes longer than healing). It never completed the Encampment I assigned it.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I tried to make as much use of the Eurekas and Inspirations as possible, especially given that Sumeria's Epic Quests ability allows you to gain village rewards from barbarian outposts (which often can be a Eureka or Inspiration) I went for Political Philosophy for policies (like everyone in the universe who isn't Greek and going for a religious victory), and for the tech giving galleys for science (ignoring Writing and other techs which I normally get on higher difficulties). After that, I focused on any techs or policies giving me a military advantage (whether it was the 50% increased production for naval units, or 50% cheaper unit upgrade costs). I didn't really need to use many of these though, and I only had two knights, so science and policies ultimately weren't all that useful. I had enough gold and production and geographic proximity to my enemies from my conquered cities, so I didn't need to be too careful as far as techs once I discovered the tech that allowed me to embark units into the deep sea.

- Did you bother with Religion?
I thought conquest might take a while since the Aztecs appeared more fortified and I hadn't found their capital yet, so I made Holy Districts towards the end of the game, but I never used them after founding a religion (as I had found the Aztec capital by that time and surrounded it with war carts).

- Did you bother with Culture?
Made maybe 2 monuments in conquered cities.

- Did you bother with Science?
Nahhh. Scythia's capital had a Campus in it though, and I guess that helped. Did make a couple of ziggurats but most of my science bonuses came from Eurekas or trade routes.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes, but not for their suzerain bonuses (most city-states I had one delegate in, giving bonus gold, science or production to the capital, which helped tremendously with early conquests). I considered Carthage's bonus might come in handy, but I made no Encampments in the game anyway (took too long), and as the game was basically a WHEEEEE domination race to victory, it didn't much matter. City-states proved problematic when I declared war on Kongo though--they were suzerain of the city-states nearby, and those city-states (unlike the AI computer leaders) actually killed some of my units (the city-states might have the same AI structure as barbarians, maybe).

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
After thinking I would need to get embarcation into the deep sea before I could conquer the other continent, I noticed with alarm that the continents were connected by shallow water, and immediately sent a flock of war carts over to the other continent to explore it. The continent was jungle rich and movement was irritating, so I sent galleys around the coast, and I found Saladin and Montezuma that way.

I was surprised that the religious civs (Spain, Arabia, and Russia) only build one city and didn't expand quickly. I saw Russia's settler (unguarded) quite a bit after I saw Spain's second (settled) city. I took all settlers I found, of course.

- Did you enjoy the game?
I did! I expected the main thrill would be trying to race to finish as soon as possible, and I was right--at every turn I had potential frustration from a scout that went the wrong way, or units in the coastal waters I put to sleep while waiting for embarcation and which I forgot to move, etc. So the tension was in trying to be as efficient as possible each turn. I had a fortunate start where a barbarian outpost gave me a recon unit, and this proved helpful to scout out the nearby area and plan my attacks on the nearby AI, which I found in short order. I then spammed war carts and conquered the entire continent I was on before turn 80 or so, by which time I had also sent armies to the other continent (attacking first Saladin, who had less defense in his capital than Mvemba a Nzinga or Montezuma I).

 

[ThomCNTV]

Religious on turn 142 620 dc. Score 212.

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

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
education and teology

- Which VC did you opt for?
Religious

- Did you bother with Religion?
Yes

- Did you bother with Culture?
no

- Did you bother with Science?
no

- Were City-States helpful?
Kandy was very helpful at all.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Barbarians were very annoying


- Other


- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes,
t's my first game of the month, I'm Brazilian and I'm sorry for bad english.

 

[Khalid]

Religious victory T163, score 422.

I didn't have a strategy from the beginning. I just wanted to try the carts first. So settled in place and started to build carts.

Took Rio first, then 2 cities from Spain, Moscow and finally 4 from Scythia to conquer my continent. Settled 2 cities myself. Left a lot of space to spawn barb camps for the bonuses. Worked great, sometimes too many camps at once

Build stonehenge in Rio just because I could and nobody build it yet. Got a religion with production focus - god of forge, work ethic, meeting house, tithe and holy order. I was not thinking about the victory at that time. I would choose stone circles instead. Decided to go religios victory later just because i could. Boosted faith through city states with the cheap apostles and missionaires just spread it around the second continent.

Enjoyed the game very much, loved the carts and the barb camp bonuses.

 

[Half Nelson]

Science victory turn 250 (score 766: Neville Chamberlain). I had hoped for much quicker but didn’t get any useful GE or GS until very end:- I banked £17k with Big Ben which eventually allowed me to buy Goddard and Koralev in rapid succession. I am not sure how the game measures “Era” in terms for GP generation, but here at Prince difficulty the AI was so far behind in Tech that the Information Era GS (Sagan, Kwolek) might not even have become available by the victory turn.

I completed my conquest of the home continent (reaching 20 cities IIRC) leaving the more distant CS for envoy placement. I completed the relevant parts of the Tech tree by turn 215 (peaking at 430 science IIRC) but was lagging in production. My 2 Space Ports took ages to complete, even in 90+ cog cities. I was suzerain of the key industrial, scientific and economic CS.

I like Sumeria, they are strong for both science and domination strategies. I farmed Barbarian outposts as much as possible and built a few riverside ziggurats (useful in early-mid science game). War-carts are great and are usually highly-promoted for knight upgrades. I didn’t have an opportunity to test out the ally bonuses and didn’t need to levy any CS military.

 

[DanQuayle]

DV T94

I haven't played the game in a while, but I decided to try out the Spring patch with this 6otM since it looked like it could be a short one.
I had to replay 2-3 turns near the beginning since I accidentally hit the quick save/load shortcuts trying to remember what the shortcuts for map lenses where (haha)

Some things I noticed:
Barbarian scouts still won't try to capture your wandering builders
Garrisoned melee units in cities still won't attack your units even if they have the capacity to kill them with one attack (I faced no garrisoned range unit in my game)
Only one AI (Arabia) had walls up before the end and no civilization had a sizeable army (but this might be tied to the low difficulty setting)
The highest city CS I faced was 41 (with a garrisoned horseman in it), but when it saw my troops moving in, it decided to flee its own capital (lol)
EDIT: Tomyris also gave me more GPT than she had available for herself in a peace deal (meaning she would run negative GPT right after the deal)

I think one of the greatest strength of the War-Cart is that it has no maintenance cost: you can really spam these units with the Maneuver policy without any downside.

 

[leif erikson]

This game is closed for submissions as time has run out.

You may continue to post here and attach saves if you wish. Results will include games above this post.

 

[mtt9999]

Domination Victory // Turn 117 // 25AD

I'm back!!! After a long hiatus of about 18 months from the Civ franchise I have finally returned... Last week I decided to pick up my copy of Civ 6 and get back into the community. After playing the first 150 turns of a test Rome game, I decided the best way to learn Civ 6 would be to play a GotM. I began with 6otM 10 as my starter game. Because 6otM has already expired, and was an easier difficulty level with a great domination civ, I decided to get my hands dirty with early warfare. That being said, I don't want to spend too much time on this write-up, as the game is more than a few months old. Holy crap those war-carts are amazing - should have probably started my early game wars earlier - but I am a builder at heart I was REALLY REALLY trying to get a victory before 0AD, but JUST missed it!!! Dom VC in 25AD ;( Regardless, I was quite pleased with my victory time for my first Civ 6 complete game! (I will do a better job with screenshots confirming victory in future 6otM, but included my save nonetheless)...

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

Settled 2 additional cities, captured a few random cities and every capital. War-Carts.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Early stuff to improve immediate tiles, then to war-carts and archers. Then mostly military techs and policies toward cartography.

- Which VC did you opt for?
Domination. War-Carts.

- Did you bother with Religion?
I rarely engage in religion in any Civ game. Perhaps it is my ignorance of the mechanics, or the fact that going fro religion typically delays other things I enjoy more. That being said, I always get a pantheon (and I like the new Civ 6 mechanic that if someone converts my city, I retain my original pantheon.) That makes getting a religion less important.

- Did you bother with Culture?
I like culture, so built a few monuments to increase city radius. No theaters or anything. War-Carts.

- Did you bother with Science
I did build an early campus to increase those early techs up to machinery and then on to cartography to find other continent!

- Were City-States helpful?
Always.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
One of my biggest deficits early in the game was a lack of exploration. I was so concentrated on getting an early science and military rush that I had little troops to send away exploring the globe. As such, my game was pretty much see civ / conquer civ / rinse and repeat. Because of this, by the time I had wiped out my continent I needed to send my armada out in all directions to find other continent. My timing was a bit off. I finished off the last capital on my continent about 8 turns before I finished cartography, which cost me some time. Moreover, I did not realize that our continent was psuedo-connected to the other continent with the natural wonder to the west. I'm still not sure I could have reached the other continent without cartography (impassable terrain from the natural wonder), however knowing that land was there would have potentially got me to victory a few turns earlier.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Always! Thanks!!!


Thanks again to the fanatic community and Leif Erikson for setting these games up!!!

See you all soon with 6otM 16 & 17!

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome back!

 

[civtrader6]

Science Victory - Turn 138

I have long suspected that on the right map, religion and easy difficulty, Gilgamesh unique ability can easily pull off sub-150 science victory - but never tried.

So, after meeting Kumasi on T3 I thought its worth a shot.It was. What follows is a brief overview of the (early) game and some key tips.

Cities:
Captured (in this order): Kandy, Carthage (builder), (Steal settler from Brazil), 1 from Russia, 2 from Spain (builder), 1 from Brazil (+ steal another settler), 2 from Scythia(2x builder) (all wars done by T85 or so)
Total: 8 plus 2 settlers
Own settlers: 10
Total 21 cities - all settled by T85 or so.

Religion:
Yes. Essential for this strategy - captured 3 holy sites (one very early), managed to get second (and cheap religion).
Pantheon: Goddess of the Harvest
Beliefs:
Jesuit Education (to purchase all campus district buildings with faith)
Papal Primacy (to get 50% extra boost from city-states)
Holy City (Rio) had a central position, religion through my cities was mostly spread through pressure only (plus maybe one or 2 missionaries).
As soon as I got religion (through Godess of the harvest) could already buy 6 missionaries (3 sent to other continent) to convert city states.

Research:
Animal Husbandry, Mining -- Pottery, Writing -- Masonry, Currency, Bronze Working -- Irrigation, Sailing -- Horse Riding, Apprenticeship -- then toward Cartography (only one without boost).
Then back to the bottom part of the tree to get universities, banking, economics. Then back up to get spaceport. Then from Castles toward future tech. Made sure to boost everything (except the part around spaceports, due to time). Great scientist used only after boosting all techs you could otherwise.


Civics:
Craftmanship, Foreign Trade --
Military Tradition -- Early Empire
PP (around T45, Oligarchy for 10-15 turns to speed up city capture then Classical Republic).
Then somewhere before T90 Merchant Republic.

Opening moves/policies:
Builder into settler. Barb camp gave me scout (and a few more later on).
Boost Craftmanship slot Agoge. 3 archers 2 warriors. (Trader/monument in second city).
Then Maneuver (7 War-carts in Capital) & Colonization (Settler in 2nd city). Urban planning back in as soon as I got government.
Keep Colonization in.
Both +2 envoy points and +2 envoys once I got Classical Republic, until all relevant CS had at least 2 envoys. Follow quests.
Every move counts. Chase barbs throughout // get boosts and goodies. Part of army sent to attack Russia (T30ish,sent. arrived bit later) part on Kandy (T34) (State Workforce boost). Kandy has desert - start building pyramids (chopped after Feudalism)

Place (but not build) campus in Capital and 2nd city, then commercial districts. Then place commercial district in 2 more cities. Place (but still not build) Campuses in all other cities.
One central city (with lots of wood) - immediately start building entertainment complex (much later, T85 or so - chop Colosseum in 5 turns).
Purchase 3 builders (make another one). Send builders around to chop settlers in all cities.

Improve (almost) nothing!

Once settlers are done, started working on builders (or a mix of builder + CD, or builder + monument - so as to time all builders in 4 turns) in all cities. Push builders with feudalism (at least 12-15).

Finally districts - finish through chopping and (only where needed) improvements. Commercial districts first (!) + 4 traders (chopped). All trade routes to city states. Occasionally chop marsh etc to grow cities quickly for the second district.Chop all new traders in cities that already have 2 districts.

All this chopping creates massive amount of faith. Faith-purchase libraries in all cities. Build 2 markets. Later purchase universities.(Built one Harbour (for 3 envoys) and much later Theater Square for same purpose).

Last city settled in a wood/stone and only for the purpose of chopping (8) builders (and 4+ in another city) as soon as I got Civil Engineering. 3 to capital (maximise / improve everything + more housing). 3 to Big Ben city (get Industrial Zone in both). Same. Rest scattered around to chop and sometimes improve tiles. Surplus builders for Ziggurats (maybe not really needed though).
Once two districts were done, stop growth in most cities (place one citizen as specialist). Start building projects (many cities never finished one).

Save 5 one-charge builders for capital (chops for space-projects). One to harvest crabs. Got 2 more from barb camps. Captured 4-5.
Great merchant (the 'tiles' one - saved to get extra chops for capital to speed up the spaceport...).Needless to say, follow city-state quests (which is easy with Gilgamesh, as barb camps can boost even humanism etc...)
Roughly time spaceport / Big-ben (through great engineer boost) and Capitalism.

Great map!
Hope this helps.