6otM 30 After Actions Report

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the 6otM 30 After Actions Report. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score and the save choice (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!
STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.
Please attached your victory save to your post.
- How many cities did you settle or capture?
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
- Did you bother with Culture?
- How did you pump your Science?
- Did you instigate any major wars?
- Were City-States helpful?
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy the game?
Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.
Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay). Please refrain from posting videos until the deadline for submission is over.​

 

[ThomCNTV]

Religious Victory, T187, Score 508


-How many cities did you settle or capture?

Settle 09 and capture 13

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Shipbuilding, Enginnering for catapults and Military Tactics for berserkers. Policies Divine Right and Reformed Church to Wars of Religion

- Did you bother with Culture?
No

- How did you pump your Science?

Just some eurekas
- Did you instigate any major wars?

Yes, against all civs that I could not convert

- Were City-States helpful?
No, they just bothered me

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

America was very resistant, and greek caravels destroyed several longships

- Did you enjoy the game?

Yes, although the low difficulty

 

[Monthar]

Religious Victory turn 184, score 640

I went with Warrior Monks and took out all but Kongo and Rome. Most of my monks went for the combat strength boosts and only a few got to the double attacks. I had a few archers that upgraded to crossbows, but the majority of my army was Warrior Monks with Frigate support.

Rome and Egypt both had a major barb problem that limited them to just their capitals. The only reason I took out Egypt is because I started a war with them to capture a settler in the ocean when my fleet was headed for Brazil.

If I'd realized this was Island Plates and not Pangaea like the announcement post claimed, I would have settled my capital on the coast and just spammed naval units. Instead I settled in place and prepped for lots of land combat.

 

[Exquisitor1]

I usually play on Emperor so this setting was fairly easy to get started and develop a significant lead.

- How many cities did you settle or capture? I settled 11 cities and captured at least 10-11. I had a little trouble securing iron and my city for horses was in a crappy spot. I took out America (turn 85) and Kongo (turn 125) early in the game using archers and a few melee units (warriors and later swordsmen). I tried engaging Spain in religious conflict but got fed up with the distance and so took out all but one of their cities. They had landed a sizable force near my Kongoese cities, so launched a surprise attack and decimated most of their land forces. I used frigates to weaken the defenses of Madrid and took it first.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies? I prioritized archery, horseback riding and ironworking early on. For policies, the usual melange of early policies, then Theology, Feudalism, etc., nothing too special here.

- Did you bother with Culture? I didn't bother with culture early on, but I did build a couple of theater squares to keep up with policy developments.

Because this was geared towards a religious victory, I focused on building a holy site fairly early (but see spoiler). After taking out Kongo, I built more holy sites to ramp up religion points. Because the GoTM was on island plates (really, there were 3 civs on my "island"), I took God of the Sea as my unique religious ability. I also took Meeting Houses as I thought I might need the production. I forgot to read about the Stave Church and so didn't build them in optimal locations; i.e., adjacent to woods.

Spoiler Wonder spoiler :

I realized early on that I had a fair bit of stone. With the demise of America and seeing Kongo on the same "continent", and not seeing any religions founded, I decided to chop Stonehenge (around turn 30). Getting Stonehenge early actually changes the holy game as it caused me to delay building shrines to rush for a holy person.I wouldn't do this at higher settings, but I was successful in this game. I also got Oracle (turn 110), Pyramids (turn 82) and Petra (turn 127) and then later Mont St. Michel and many others. These slowed down the ground advance a bit, but I had already produced enough archers and warriors to take out Washington and threaten MbanzaKwanga. With the capture of Washington and New Orleans, I could shift war production to those cities, plus their proximity to Kongo helped in terms of reinforcements.

- Did you instigate any major wars? I had several wars, but the fun one was turn 137 when Brazil, Spain, Egypt, and Greece all declared war on me. They didn't have any significant navies, nor did I, so that war consisted of picking off some ships here and there, but one ship picked off a Greek settler and I forward settled on their island.

Regarding the religious wars, once I'd take out most of Spain, the only real threat was Brazil. I formed groups of 3 apostles with 1-2 gurus and sailed them over to Brazil. They'd land and pretty much hold tight defending off and killing the Brazilian inquisitors. I kept doing this until I had 3 "brigades" on their island. Two apostle upgrades were critical: debator, which we all know makes them virtually indestructable, and the one that negates 75% of the pressure. I used the latter on their capital and it was pretty much a mop up action after that, but I had at least 12-15 turns of apostle war because the Brazilian had produced so many inquisitors. Note that the victory came from the death of the inquisitors and their negative modifiers applied to the surrounding cities' religious pressure. Egypt failed to expand probably because of barbarian wars, and Rome never founded a religion, so the remainder of the game was spent converting cities manually with apostle charges to garner the victory.

- Were City-States helpful? Yes, they were very helpful for trade, bonuses, and as allies.

- Did you enjoy the game? Yes, although I've only played out 3 religious victories in total. I find them a bit tedious. I also tend to use the same few policy cards, so that gets boring as well.

 

[arthur486]

RV @ turn 145 - new personal record (by far).

T1 - Settled in place and went about my usual build order
T17 - Pantheon helped greatly by Jerusalem meeting bonus, for the first time I selected Stone Circles, and it turned out useful
T73 - I was beaten to the first GP on the last turn (i had 59.3 GP points) by Philip using Stonehenge - this was a shock :|
T79 - Founded religion using the second GP, after a city project in Nidaros
T80 - declared by America & Spain; beat back America and took 1 city

From this point I sent my missionaries out, scouted using longships and tried to avoid wars; I was the only one with a meaningful religion, as the AI played poorly. This was especially the case of Trajan, who only had his capital, with a bunch of his settlers captured by barbarians. None of the AI players had more than 4 cities by the end.

Between T80 - T145, i was declared several times by pairs of AI players, sometimes those whom I (thought) got along with. Anyway, I beat them back and did not eliminate anyone. Finished with around 12 cities, found Norway a very fun civ to play with.

Thanks for the game!

 

[Falabello]

Religious Victory - Turn 156

- Did you enjoy the game? Yep... Always! Thanks for one more game !

 

[guslaet]

RV - Turn 228

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 9, capture 2.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Whatever was cheapest and gave more bonuses.

- Did you bother with Culture?
Not really. But I gave priority to Theater squares (after Holy sites) in order to try to get a GW, because 3 city-states were demanding it. (I didn't get it though.)

- How did you pump your Science?
I didn't.

- Did you instigate any major wars?
One with America, early game. I destroyed them.

- Were City-States helpful?
I think so. I manage to be suzerain of both religious ones for most of the game. I had lots of faith incoming.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
There were lots of barbarians. But they were good actually. They provided me with all Settlers I got and lots of Workers.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes! As always. Looking forward for new civs games.

 

[Ludvig]

I won on turn 217. I started the game settling to the east and went for stone circles to get great faith output. Then choral music, holy order mosques and pilgrimage to just get tons of faith and decent culture.

How many cities did you settle or capture?
Six early cities (cap+5) all settled eastward of the cap and then captured two from America. I then settled another six cities later to get resources and some gold because I had trouble gaining income.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Went hard for religion of course. Then I brainfarted and left out all the naval ones, focusing on getting a lot of production and a few military units to upgrade later.
- Did you bother with Culture?
I took the belief that gave me culture for temples and shrines and then moved quickly to double the faith for temple buildings to get a healthy culture output.
- How did you pump your Science?
At first I was actually way behind on science but I shaped up. The card for double science on buildings and three universities helped me catch up. Then America got pissed because I chopped to many jungles and tried to backstab me. I had charriots ready to be knights and archers to crossbows so I upgraded and kicked his ass (but left him his capitol) which netted me two more campuses.
- Did you instigate any major wars?
Nope, apart from taking two citites from america I didn't touch anyone, merely raiding a little when they declared on me to try and stop me.
- Were City-States helpful?
Yes, I got several states to one pretty quickly so my cap was thriving and then I had Jerusalem and a couple of mercantile ones allied which gave me pretty sick faith output.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Just that Rome was completely overrun by barbarians so when I bothered to convert him he had two cities way apart and the entire continent was swarming with settlers and workers. By that time it was way too late for them to matter, settled two cities on luxuries a turn or two before I won.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Kind of. The beginning was really fun with the wonky locations, starting to catch up was fun but then the religious game became a slog and the AI was doing dumb things like idling settlers all over the place and barely putting up a fight, Egypt didn't even spawn inquisitors when I got to them and I had three enemy settlers just sit on my continent to the west. Had I known I might have played it better and stolen barb settlers and workers instead of getting my own like a true viking. I don't think religious victories are my bag but thanks for the game!

Is that typical low level behaviour to just let the bars steal all their workers and settlers?

 

[pahakuutti]

RV - turn 121

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Built only 3 settlers, conquered 5 cities and found 2 barb settlers.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Aimed for fast theocracy, but still it took ~100 turn to reach it.

- Did you bother with Culture?
Yes, you need some culture to get theocracy. Took Choral Music to speed up culture and built couple of monuments.

- How did you pump your Science?
I didn't. Pretty much ignored it.

- Did you instigate any major wars?
Took Teddy out before I met other civs.

- Were City-States helpful?
Jerusalem was helpful to get pantheon, but then I conquered her.
Found Kandy too late to have an actual impact.
So, not much help from city-states.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
At this level AI can't handle the barbs. So, when you send missionaries to convert enemy cities, you better have military escorts. Quite many times my missionaries had to retreat, because of rampaging barbs inside enemy borders.

Thanks for the game.

 

[Shinatoo]

So I haven't played any Civ in ages. Did a practice round with the same parameters of the COTM and thought I had a pretty good grasp. Got 6/8 converts then waited too long on Spain and Egypt. Was making progress on Spain when the USA got a cultural victory. I learned a ton though and it was fun to try a victory type I never considered. Much more engaging then I expected. Thanks for the great scenario.

 

[kcd_swede]

T239 RV (1640AD) Dan Quayle score 268

Settled 7 (two too late to be meaningful), captured 0, on coast. At one point, I figured killing off Brazil which was defending its own religion was the way to go, but joint war with Spain was unsuccessful. Concentrated only on religion... was making apostles about every 3rd turn (180 faith/turn at end).

Kongo got converted first and were quite happy with me, same for America (2nd). Converted a number of city-states just to get some more pressure (and they don't fight it). Cleo/Egypt was the first religion founder who got overrun with the Norse religion-once I convert her holy city to Norse, she has no way to get out of it any more. Rome settled a few tiny cities on my island, making their conversion very simple. Greek were thrid, actually, and never founded a religion.

Note, I Stonehenged my GPro, and was probably about 40 turns ahead of religion 2... so a lot of early spread was simple.

Spain and Brazil turned out the toughest, as they had inquisitions going. I figured out what guru's are good for, and got Spain converted, including holy city. Brazil holy city was too well defended, and I already had 3 out of their 6 cities converted... so I got to their 7pop city with 2 apostles (totaling 15 conversion charges!) but it only took one shot and the game was over. Classic overshoot at the end, but I learned a lot.

I think I will play again (not for submit) to see how much faster it goes if I use some military to take down a couple religions, so that the apostle conversion work can be more focused and less spread out. Total focus on religion is probably not the fastest way to religion victory, as I'm sure most of you figured out long ago.

edit to add: wonder = Stonehenge, Mahatmabodi? (2 apostles+extra charge), and Hagia Sophia - failed on GLib and HangGard

 

[centerface]

RV T248 (1685 AD)

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
I settled 4 only 4 cities and captured 0

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mixture of both. Went head long for stonehenge, oracle and Mont Saint Michelle and then after that, whatever would keep me close with science and culture

- Did you bother with Culture?
3 of my cities had a theater and I picked up a couple artists along the way. Ended the game with about 60 culture per turn so didn't go too heavy in this

- How did you pump your Science?
6/8 for civs in science. I wasn't too far behind until the end of the game when I was still only able to pump out swordsman and gunpowder was invented

- Did you instigate any major wars?
No. There was one major war against Spain but that ended inconclusively and I wasn't involved

- Were City-States helpful?
Jerusalem was very helpful early on as it help spread my religion to America. Other then that, not so much

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Spain made a late game push to hold onto Catholicism but I was able to pump out some apostles and take out most of their inquisitors.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes! Never done a religious game before so it was a fun change of pace

 

[Scaramanga]

Religious victory, T263 (1760), 583 score

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 11. Captured 10.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Military Tactics and Divine Right
- Did you bother with Culture?
I didn't build a single monument from scratch (ie. not repair) or theater district. I stuck with Nan Madol most of the game though.
- How did you pump your Science?
Pillaging mines and campuses.
- Did you instigate any major wars?
I sailed around the continent to attack Washington. Defeated Greece and Brazil.
- Were City-States helpful?
I made sure to keep a lock on Jerusalem and Kandy for most of the game.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Kongo and America joint warred me, I responded with pillaging most of their tiles and bringing a lot of their district defenses down.
- Did you enjoy the game?
I enjoyed just pillaging around instead of capturing every city on the map. Plugged in Sack/Raid/Total War for extra gains.​

 

[lockwa]

First time participating in a Game of the Month!

Religious victory T320 (1898), 485 Score

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
13 Settled, none captured. Apart from some early coastal raiding on Greece and Kongo, I played peacefully the whole game.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
After the initial push to Shipbuilding I played pretty loose with priorities
- Did you bother with Culture?
Didn't build a single Theatre district, but found other ways of boosting culture (Choral Music belief, Nan Madol)
- How did you pump your Science?
Had a couple of Campuses and got Oxford University. Cross-Cultural Dialogue belief accounted for about 20% of my science
- Did you instigate any major wars?
No. Early coastal raiding against Greece and Kongo was it.
- Were City-States helpful?
I held Mohenjo-Daro, Nan Madol and Jerusalem for the whole game. M-D helped me place cities wherever I wanted, NM was good for culture and Jerusalem is fairly obvious I suppose.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Only Spain and Brazil went for a religion early. Greece suddenly popped up with Buddhism in the late mid-game, but I promptly squashed that.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yup, it was my first time playing Norway and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. I think I will play another game with a more warmongery style as I didn't really use Berserkers at all! Looking forward to trying another one of these, thanks!

 

[ferenginar]

T356 1935 Religious Victory – Score 410

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

Settle 7 Capture 0, 1 barbarian settler


- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Faith

- Did you bother with Culture?
No

- How did you pump your Science?
Didn’t

- Did you instigate any major wars?
None

- Were City-States helpful?
Jerusalem and Kandy

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Learnt a new tactic (Spain and then Brazil), gave up trying to hard to convert their cities as they got converted back straight away. Put a couple of debaters on their continent, with gurus and a few other apostles for support. Let them kill themselves on my troops until the -250 / +250 did all the converting for me. Used a few apostles and missionaries in the usual way to entice their inquisitors out to play.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Hard work, but yes I did.

 

[JeffreyLXV]

I know it is way late, but I’ve been into the GOTM series off and on for years and this report, I think my first, is a chance to say thanks.
I used this GOTM to force myself to learn Civ 6, so a religious victory in 1810 AD at 276 turns (494 score) is likely a bit protracted. I also avoid war when not attempting a domination victory.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

6 cities settled mainly (attached pic), but 3 more late because I kept finding barbarian settlers, and yet still didn’t use a couple of them.

Captured New York to hamper Teddy after he backstabbed me.

Took Pericles’ capital Athens after he backstabbed me. I didn’t really want to, but he would not give up anything for a surrender.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Religious and faith stuff and then chased boosts.

- Did you bother with Culture?

Building most districts on coastlines for the culture boost from the Nan Madol city-state seemed to help. I also always build monuments and had Choral Music as an early belief.

- How did you pump your Science?

I kind of neglected science until I tried to fulfill eureka and inspiration requirements.

- Did you instigate any major wars?

I only declared a protectorate war when Teddy tried to take Jerusalem, but mainly I did it for the nationalism civic boost.

- Were City-States helpful?

Nan Madol for culture from coastal districts.

Jerusalem helped being nearby in the early-game, especially with religious pressure into America and the closer city-states.

Mohenjo-Daro for the water-housing boost. I’m still a bit unsure about all that though - Does coastal water give a housing boost? It shouldn’t IMO.

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

I ended up throwing money around with the income from tithe.

Brazil was really pumping out a lot of faith, so I must have missed a few religious methods, buildings etc. Converting Pedro’s cities became a huge priority. He eventually declared a fruitless war.

Phillip II of Spain was the last to convert; an invasion of apostles, missionaries and gurus to overcome his many, many inquisitors.

Using the “Earth Goddess” pantheon for faith from tiles with charming or better appeal seemed a no-brainer to me. Others here apparently didn’t agree. It's not as relevant though since they changed the method for obtaining a prophet.

Blew a bunch of faith on a naturalist for whom I couldn't find a place to use.

My goodness the AI is shockingly and disappointingly awful.

- Did you enjoy the game?

Mostly and thanks again. I’m not happy with Civ 6, but GOTM always adds to the experience.

 

[leif erikson]

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