6otM 2024 Krampus AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM 2024 Krampus After Actions Report (AAR) thread.

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state your victory/loss turn/date (preferably in the post title) and describe your path to glory in this post! Please attach your victory save to your post. Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thank you.

If this is a replay, please indicate 'REPLAY' at the top of your post. If you conduct regular restarts, please indicate 'RELOADS' at the top of your post. More posting helps us all get play better as we understand the methods of others, but want to clearly distinguish between a first run through without reloads and other submissions as it is much harder to recover in game from the mistakes we all make.

Some questions to consider answering.
- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- Where did you settle your capital and first few cities?
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
- How did the map affect your gameplay?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy your game?

 

[RocknOats]

I DID IT!!! I do reload regularly, so I can't add my save or anything, and I don't remember what my final score was (I did make top rank tho), but I did it... Holy cow, so stressful...

Broadly, here's my path to victory:
1. I immediately built up to take on Germany. I took Lady/Marshes for early prod. and snuck a settler southwest to grab all those desert floodplains.
2. I bore down and slogged thru his stronger units and cities until I finally took Aachen with galleys and quads. He never walled it (???)
I was already 100 turns in at this point, and Maya had 300 more points than I did, and was starting her Mars mission
3. I took ten turns to retool and move units into position and again, wore down her advanced armies, until I had finally taken her last city... after the previous dark age took out her and Germany's other cities.
4. The last dark age got me! I had made gold EVERY time prior, and it knocked out most of what I had conquered from her. So I spent the last age getting them back with my jet bombers and a couple MAs, then sent my GDRs and main force off to smash Korea and Japan to pad my point total. I wanted to ensure nothing crazy happened with their space programs.

And that's that! I couldn't believe it! I had been mercilessly slaughtered by every previous Krampus visit. Also, watching all my hard work and City-State friends get meteored to death was heartbreaking...

 

[Eyswein]

I DID IT!!!

 

[CiJay]

SV 153
Not this time Krampus! Rough game, thanks for the setup.

I'm not a fan of the dark ages mode as I always go 1 or 2 times into a dark age and lose a bunch of my cities. As I thought this would for sure happen this time as well my strategy was to rush religion, choose beliefs which give a lot of faith and convert as many cities as possible. Then go for grand master chapel and pillage and conquer my way back to top.
Unfortunately Maya was already so far ahead that I was not sure if I make it. Anyhow I managed to kill of Germany relateviely in the beginning and pillaged quite a lot to slowly catch up.
As expected I went into a dark age but positioned my troops quite well to conquer them back quite quickly.
In the meantime I tried to get as much citystates as possible on my side - especially the science ones which were mainly in possession of Maya.
Once their military was weak I timed an attack and conquered some of their cities and pillaged as lot as possible. At this time they had already launched 2 space projects and started the third. My spies made work and disabled their spaceports and this was actually where I got ahead and won

 

[timof]

score victory, with restarts

wow, what a stressful game...
I never dared to switch on apocalypse mode before; this time. I wanted to to see the endgame,
so I decided to try and survive till turn 200 and go for score victory.
It took me three starts until I found a strategy that worked.

I deliberately went into a dark classical age with just one city (so no city rebelled), all other
ages were golden. I joined the sanguine pact and used military power to pillage and
conquer - to earn score, and of course to stop the space programs of the AI civs.
Getting golden ages turned out to be surprisingly easy, but the fighting was incredibly
tough. The Mayans had highly advanced units, far ahead of mine, and strategic resources
were always in short supply. But those vampires are fantastic and by turn 180 I had finally
conquered every city with a space port. I made peace with all surviving civs and for the
remaining 20 turns, I just pressed shift-enter and watched those comets strike and destroy
much of my great empire, including the best vampire castles, a couple of great wonders,
and many of my vasall city states.

Great game! but I don't want to go through this again...

 

[rozhouse]

Science Victory T170 - Score 3745

What a fun game - thank you!! I haven't played a full game in about 2 years, but with Civ VII around the corner I thought I'd dip back in for one final game, and I had a great time.

- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
My initial plan was to go all the way to T200 to maximise the score, but I'd forgotten how quickly climate can get out of hand, so in the end I just had to hold off completing the space race projects as long as possible while just crossing my fingers that not too many of my cities got wiped out.

See below, some areas fared better than others. But even so, every turn I was checking I was accumulating positive score from additional tech/civic/settlements/districts despite the comet devastations (overall though I think I was quite fortunate not many got wiped out completely):

- Where did you settle your capital and first few cities?
I took quite a while deciding where to settle the capital. Initially the land to the South looked pretty empty, while I suspected in the North-West there might be a good campus/holy site location by the mountains (checking the tile appeal tooltip). So I settled on the plains hills one North.

My second city I positioned next to the flood plains and volcano to the South-West as I was hoping a few disasters would improve yields and keep population under control. Generally food was plentiful so throughout the game I basically never built the granary and tried to keep population low for the first ~100 turns to keep my citizens happy. Both Gori and Poti were settled near Barb camps which I then farmed for unit experience and sat a warrior on top of until they became city states (in the case of Mitla), however Wolin cleared the North camp after a miss-click from me!

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?

I went for two scouts initially as I was very keen to ensure golden ages throughout, which I ended up managing due to my expansion. I then pumped out two slingers and another warrior so I could farm the barbs for experience and gain some tech boosts. After that I focused on my first holy site (Tbilisi) and Campus (Gori). I found the early game relatively relaxing surprisingly, the nearby city states all boosting production were a massive help.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

I wanted to make sure I was actually playing to Tamar's strengths, so focused on religion (which I thought would also be easier to spread on a map with 6 civs). Crusade gave me much needed additional combat strength as I expanded, taking out Maya first as she seemed like my biggest threat.

My founded pantheon focused on her attribute where you get two envoys if the city-state follows your religion - for this Papal Primacy was incredible and meant I ended up with possibly the most envoys I've ever had (see below) - easily over 100. Choral music allowed me to completely ignore building theatre districts which I didn't do in a single one of my own founded cities, allowing me to focus on Holy sites, Campuses, Commercial hubs and industrial zones (in that order).

Valetta was by far and away the most important city-state for me. It meant I could purchase Walls and Flood barriers with Faith (at hugely reduced costs in the case of flood barriers), but also being able to buy civilian units throughout the game with all the excess faith I was generating was also incredibly important.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?

In the end I owned 66 cities - 38 captured, 28 settled.

Summary

A great, fun game overall, still with some challenge - especially when I tried to take over Maya and Korea. Both my first attempts I had to request peace after taking a couple of settlements and wait until I'd advanced further down the tech tree before finishing them off. City-States and Germany were great aids for me in the first 100 turns and allowed me to expand without much resistance which was great. In the end I generated enough faith to be able to able to purchase every single great person and almost had every governor fully promoted which was also pretty cool. Some of the best cities I took over were Babylonian (see below), which made for some lovely sea yields (just a pity about the craters!). I never normally have games going this long so it was quite fun managing the climate and holding my breath every turn to see which region was going to be devastated next

 

[nufro]

T 144 SV
Never seen those comets destroying cities, scary stuff..

 

[Bangau]

Hi @Eyswein , been playing this one for a while and loving it. I've rarely played with certain victory conditions OFF, like this game. And now that I've wiped out every AI, because why not... I get a victory screen saying 'everyone else has lost, therefore you've won'. Cool to see, never had that one before in thousands of hours of gameplay, but now I can't finish the challenge, I've won but not with a score or science victory. Was this intentional? Any ideas?

Moderator Action: Moved from the Announcement thread. Please do not post in the Announcement thread due to spoiling the games of other players. Thanks, leif

 

[Eyswein]

Hi @Eyswein , been playing this one for a while and loving it. I've rarely played with certain victory conditions OFF, like this game. And now that I've wiped out every AI, because why not... I get a victory screen saying 'everyone else has lost, therefore you've won'. Cool to see, never had that one before in thousands of hours of gameplay, but now I can't finish the challenge, I've won but not with a score or science victory. Was this intentional? Any ideas?

Moderator Action: Moved from the Announcement thread. Please do not post in the Announcement thread due to spoiling the games of other players. Thanks, leif

Glad you are enjoying it!

If all civilizations are completely eliminated, it will give you a domination victory condition even when it is turned off. Apologize for not listing that. You can ignore it (if desired) and go ahead and continue or consider this completed. If I remember correctly (it's been a while since I tested it), you should still be able to get the one of the other victory conditions when you reach them.

 

[Bangau]

Finally done. Was a blast, thanks again! Long challenging civ games are my cup of tea, and this turned out to be just that. I upped the challenge to 'golden ages only', and with a lot of planning it worked. This is what it looks like on turn 201 after (my first ever) score victory:

Often when I play I do my best to get as many golden ages as possible, use a simple UI tool 'EraTracker' to help with that as well as many other UI mods. A game like this is already tedious and without those mods I don't think anyone would have the patience to go on. You get so much more insight with the right tools, the game becomes unplayable without. The biggest factor probably is the Trading tool I use, it gives you messages whenever a new trade is available and most importantly it instantly shows which AI will pay the most for a certain resource like a luxury. It technically isn't cheating, but you make many more and much more profitable trades with it. Without it the game is harder, I'm sure. So for the GOTM rules, this entry is 'blurred'. ;-)

Let's answer the GOTM questions:
- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
First goal is obviously to play a solid deity game. A lot can be said about that, but other's have already done so on this website for years. To summarize: pay attention to everything... (settling, expanding, diplomacy, trading, war, city states... everything...). Second goal was not be destroyed by the apocalypse. I built a lot of industrial zones to be able to run the carbon project. By the time the climate got bad it turned out to be not to hard to stop climate change with all those zones, so meteors were never a concern. Third goal: max score. That means a religion (you want that as Georgia anyway), as many zones, buildings, population, wonders etc. as possible. Went full simcity mode for this, especially the last quarter of the game. Most cities were 'maxed out' at the end, running commercial projects to generate money I couldn't really spent on anything valuable anymore. My personal extra goal helped a lot with the others: only get golden ages. This one was the hardest, the first few ages were quite doable, but when you empire grows, the number of era points you need increases dramatically. Was the fifth or the sixth era that I suddenly had to gain over 200 era score within 20 turns. By that time was probably getting a civic and a tech per turn, so in dramatic ages that adds up, and was still wiping out the AI, getting era score for every promotion for a unit from the second one up. Still I had to fins all kinds of ways to 'harvest era score', but it worked. A nice little victory every era, that helps you stay motivated to go on.
- Where did you settle your capital and first few cities?
See the image above.
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
I really couldn't tell anymore. It's weeks ago.
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
I always try to get as many eurekas/boosts as possible, it really speeds you up through the trees. Did that here as well, except of there was a tech/civic I really wanted sooner. There's no 'one best order' as some people claim, I just go with it every game.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
This one was huge this game. The extra wildcard slot AND the dark age policies were super useful all game long. Tamar's ability is great as well, all the extra faith buys settlers and builders with monumentality. One of the most important policies there is. The occasional extra envoy is a bonus, but not so important. The Tsikhe is quite nice as well, with Valettte in the game and all the faith generation I got to buy them in many cities and they generate a lot of faith themselves over the course of the game (+8).
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
80 cities in total. To maximize score I settled EVERY available tile. Probably conquered about 25 or 30 cities from the AI.
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
To max out the score I build everything I could, depending on the phase of the game. Settlers in one phase, units in another. Got lucky and had the '50% production' resolution twice. Pumped out armies in no time.
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Got a relic early and that got me the best pantheon: religious settlements. Work ethic and religious colonization is my go to for solid deity games. Slingshots your empire in combination with monumentality. Later on cross-cultural dialogue and gurdware, for faster science and more food.
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Part of a game like this is switching goverments and especially policies often. Building in army? Slot in the boost to unit building. Upgrading many units, slot in the 5-% discount. I religiously go over all policies every time I can make a change, and sometimes even pay to change them halfway researching a civic if I think that's profitable.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Amani first to secure the first golden age by vising all the city states you meet. Magnus and Pingala after that. And in this game: voidsingers off course, so much free faith, science and gold because of them.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Like I said, I trade using the Quick Deals mod. It makes it so much easier and you get so much value out of it. It's formally not cheating, but it sometimes feels like it.
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Nope.
- How did the map affect your gameplay?
Wanted to have one 'partner to trade with on my own island', Germany had walls, Lady Six Sky didn't, so Frederik it was. Allied him, and later on used his cities for 'flipping', which give a decent amount of era score. The second island were just 'food for the armies'. Babylon even went extinct before I was ready to attack him, so got an easy entry to the second continent by taking the free cities he left me.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Was surprised to win a 'Victory' when I finally took Frederik's last city. Decided to load a very recent save at the end of the previous turn and played on. Had to give him many free luxuries to prevent his only city from flipping to loyalty.
The golden age game was nuts, many times I thought it couldn't be done. You only have 20 turns, but with the help of the era tracker tool I somehow always managed to do so. And most ages I even overshot the required era score. Sometimes by a lot. Ended up with 1116 era score, which is... a lot I guess.
- Did you enjoy your game?
Very much! Thanks again, was exactly the type of game I had been looking for in these days 'just before civ 7'.

 

[sjwaste]

Often when I play I do my best to get as many golden ages as possible, use a simple UI tool 'EraTracker' to help with that as well as many other UI mods. A game like this is already tedious and without those mods I don't think anyone would have the patience to go on. You get so much more insight with the right tools, the game becomes unplayable without. The biggest factor probably is the Trading tool I use, it gives you messages whenever a new trade is available and most importantly it instantly shows which AI will pay the most for a certain resource like a luxury. It technically isn't cheating, but you make many more and much more profitable trades with it. Without it the game is harder, I'm sure. So for the GOTM rules, this entry is 'blurred'. ;-)

How do you force your mods back on? I finished my game already but wanted to give it another go with the trading tool, era tracker, and enhanced cards mods. I can't figure out how to force them back on.

 

[Bangau]

How do you force your mods back on?

There's section in the main menu where you can set mods on and off. I use a mod to manage mods myself called 'enhanced mod manager', but it can be done without that as well.