6otM 96 AAR

Knowtalent · Oct 2, 2020

Welcome to the 6otM 96 After Actions Report. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory type, 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?
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
- Did you bother with Diplomacy ?
- How did you convert or conquer your enimies?
- Were City-States helpful?
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy the game?
-What do you think of the random tech/civ trees?
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.

Drac00La · Oct 3, 2020

RV turn 119
It was a fun fast game with lots of early choices! SiPped, went AH first to unlock horses. Initial plan was a horsemen rush (ideally with vampire) and finish with either tagmas + dromons for DV or apostles for RV. However, I've met Voidsingers in the very first goody hut (went for Pingala first to have more options with SSes) and found a relic in the second hut! Here is where I started thinking about pure religious game. The next 2 events that finalized my decision were: 1) no horses nearby; 2) Sacred Path pantheon was available, which meant I can get several very high adjacency holy sites. From here the plan was simple - join Voidsingers, get 2-3 cities out to build obelisks and HSes, found a religion (work ethic, zeal, pilgrimage). Start convertion with a couple of missionaries (also useful for scouting), finish off with apostles. The only thing I was worried about is getting Classical Dark Age, so I've build a small army to recapture cities just in case. Turned out it wasn't necessary - I was like 5 points over the counter. First pantheon, high adj HS and getting PP before era change helped a lot. Anyways it was my first game with Dramatic Ages, so better safe then sorry I guess. Medieval GE was easy as well. I didn't make use of switching GE cards - Monumentality was unnecessary, and the rest didn't seem useful to me, so I used Exodus forever.
Got a bit sloppy near the end. Tried to eliminate Hojo's religion with Missionaries, but all of his cities followed his religion by that time and had holy sites, so he managed to get a couple of his own missionaries out after I've converted his holy city. I also was slow with converting Jadwiga and Eleanor - should have sent first wave there instead of converting them last. Overall, I'd say my finish time can be improved by at least 10-15 turns. Also I wonder if finish can be faster with a domination + religion mix (or maybe even pure domination?). Looking forward to stories from other participants!
- How many cities did you settle?
Settled 4, captured none. 4th city was not very good, because Hojo claimed the land that I was gonna settle.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: AH, Irrigation + Astrology to place HS in place of marsh, which was the best place with Sacred Path. Archery + BW next as I was worried that Hojo will declare on me sooner or later (he never did, was way too busy with capturing Fez and dealing with loyalty issues). Went for Shipbuilding next, the rest didn't really matter.
Policies: PP - Theology, beelined Reformed Church next but finished a couple of turns before researching it.
- Did you bother with Diplomacy ?
Yep, tried to be in a good relations with everyone - sent delegations, maintained open borders, sent trade routes when possible. Wilfred (and later Eleanor and Pericles) payed 14 coins for DF, easy money!
- How did you convert or conquer your enemies?
Failed converting Hojo with missionaries, so waited for Apostles while leftovers went for China and Greece. Luckily my very first Apostle got Debater and managed to kill all Japanese missionaries and converted him. After healing up, he went for India with the help from another one who got bad promotions. 2 apostles converted Canada (and later helped with France), while 2 from Mahabodhi + 1 bought went for Poland and France.
- Were City-States helpful?
Nope, Fez had 5! envoys from China when I met it (I was shocked because it was like turn 15) and Hojo killed it off later. The rest didn't seem very useful, send 3 envoys to Armagh for a bit of Faith.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Finding Voidsingers first hut and relic second hut was huge! Not much surprises after that.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yep, very much. Cool map with lots of options, thank you!

tarafran · Oct 3, 2020

DV-154
A pleasure to play that civ. t'was my first game with dramatic Ages ,did not realized that I had to put a card in to get my faith settler and workers

Settled on the lux between the mountain and forward my second city toward Amanitore. Built 3 slingers and started to attack Bologna to upgrade them. Suz Babylone and raise there any for Era score and then Dow Amanitore
I took the fishing boat pantheon that came handy in mid game.
I went for astrology to get the second religion (Jesuite education and crusade)
I was replaying a Deity game from GamerGramps on YouTube with Basil and had so much fun with waring that I went that route
After that I beelined for caravel while spamming my UU boats
Opened with Pingala x3 Voisingers
I only use the Hippodromes mid game as most of my enemies were water based .
Diplo was bad as I was always fighting at least 3 civs, sold eventing for open border and gold on first contact
Great game thanks

Knowtalent · Oct 3, 2020

tarafran said:
DV-154
A pleasure to play that civ. t'was my first game with dramatic Ages ,did not realized that I had to put a card in to get my faith settler and workers
Settled on the lux between the mountain and forward my second city toward Amanitore. Built 3 slingers and started to attack Bologna to upgrade them. Suz Babylone and raise there any for Era score and then Dow Amanitore
I took the fishing boat pantheon that came handy in mid game.
I went for astrology to get the second religion (Jesuite education and crusade)
I was replaying a Deity game from GamerGramps on YouTube with Basil and had so much fun with waring that I went that route
After that I beelined for caravel while spamming my UU boats
Opened with Pingala x3 Voisingers
I only use the Hippodromes mid game as most of my enemies were water based .
Diplo was bad as I was always fighting at least 3 civs, sold eventing for open border and gold on first contact
Great game thanks

it looks like you got the file i incorrectly attached to the original post. the correct file is up now its starting position will match the photo in the post

tarafran · Oct 4, 2020

DV-130 on the right starting file

Only settled 2 cities and spammed my UU boats.Went for a religion first
Biggest surprise was taking a 56 city with one shot with my vampire
easier game than the previous that had 10 civ, but still a lot's of fun to play with Basil
Thanks

TheFinalChiTown · Oct 8, 2020

T117 DV

Spoiler :

- How many cities did you settle? Settled 3, captured 25, including a few CS's because my caravels couldn't help vs the non-coastal capitals at the end.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Techs: BW, IW, Cartography. Civics: PP, Mercenaries, Exploration
- Did you bother with Diplomacy? Somewhat. I was able to sell lots of diplo favor to Canada before I had to declare war on it. Was able to declare a very profitable joint war with Greece on France. Had to do it on the turn I met Greece, because they denounce me the next one.
- How did you convert or conquer your enemies? Two navies - each with a couple dromons and galleys (to caravels). Two armies of swordsmen led by two great generals. I earned a couple great admirals late, but they didn’t help much. Oh, and two vampires! Their CS gets upgraded to that of caravels. A couple Tagmas finished the deal.
- Were City-States helpful? A little. Mexico City helped in the war against Japan. I wanted to levy Lahore to attack Greece, but Pericles dumped four envoys into it after I suzed.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
1) Barely earned a classical golden age. I met Poland on the last turn to get the final era point.
2) Two words: Mercenary Companies. I uttered a few choice words when I saw the World Congress resolution. It’s a death sentence for fast DV’s. I voted for 50% off gold, but production discount won overwhelmingly. Made it easy for the AI to spam crossbows. I eventually started spamming catapults to break down the defenses. But, overall, the resolution cost me 4-5 swordsman and ~10 turns.
3) Lack of good locations for Holy Sites. I tried running God King to get Sacred Paths, but Japan got it before I did. At that point I shifted to pure military, building encampments first.
- Did you enjoy the game? Always. I thought it was fun naval map for the UU. Although, it would have been better to have a natural wonder start so everyone could take advantage of Byzantium’s religious mechanics - they’re pretty cool.
- Hindsight:
1) Missed an opportunity to capture China’s capital in the ancient era. I built two galleys and sent them out exploring, without noticing that coastal Xian’s CS was 15.
2) Sent swordsmen to Canada when all it took to get their capital was a caravel.

Email10 · Oct 8, 2020

T166 RV, Score 1166

See my post for Opening Actions for first ~100 turns.

I started spamming Hippdromes & Arenas for plenty of free Tagmas that I use to roll over the rest of Japan and then China & Canada who had jumped in on an emergency war against me. The killing of units converted their cities and made it even easier to take them. Some cities went down with only 2 Tagma attacks. Other units like Crossbowmen or Swordsmen were quite useless as the lacked the speed to follow my Tagma army. In parallel, I sent some Missionaries and Apostles to convert India.

After I had conquered all of my island, I jumped on France by first converting their Holy City. At that time most of my army consisted of Curassiers, backed up by some Tagmas for the extra bonus. I captured two of France cities with a single Curassier attack! Meanwhile, I spammed Missionaries and Apostles to convert Greece and then turn to Poland. The last 30-40 turns or so went quite fast and without surprises.

Thanks for a nice game where we could really use the strengths of the Byzantines!

Tarry · Oct 11, 2020

Religious Victory 138, accidental - I was gong for domination
I posted in Open Actions for the first 100 turns. That was when I turned the corner and began the Byzantine Snowball of Power
Of course I made an error in that post. Tagma come with Divine Right, not Knights, doh! I ended up with an extra chariot, but swiftly swapped builds to prevent anything else being completed.

- How many cities did you settle?
5 I think. Ended with 31

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mercs for 1/2 price upgrades, Theocracy for 15% discount.

- Did you bother with Diplomacy ?
No. I was a warmonger, I didn't bother to even do early delegations outside of Japan and China (on my island)

- How did you convert or conquer your enimies?
Apostles for Canada turned his cities, for everyone else Missionaries did most of the work, my Apostles had nothing to kill except a single lone French missionary.

- Were City-States helpful?
Fez was awesome, for the massive science boost of my rolling conversions.

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

spreading my religion for the crusade benefits.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes.
The spam of hippodromes and the building in them is super powerful, the amenities kept my growing military empire happy
The Dromon's feel super strong when they arrive, and for a long time rules the waves
The rolling forwards of the Byzantimes with killing units and capturing cities produces an unstoppable religious wave of conversion that makes taking the next city and the next one just so easy with Tagma.

What did you think of Dramatic Ages (not random tech trees)
The 1st Classical dark age struggle which was very disappointing to lose cities because there just weren't enough points available to me to get a golden age.
Mediaeval I was golden, everyone else went dark. The losses that all the other empires experienced completely crippled them. Recovering from that took all the other empires so long that my military victories were very easy.
Renaissance, everyone was golden, but it was irrelevant I won only a few turns into it.
I think the Dramatic Ages strongly favours the player over the AI
Switching golden age policies felt very powerful, juggling being able to produce builders @ +2 charges vs religious units @+2 charges as needed was super strong.
Using the wildcard slot for golden/dark age policies when you haven't got any if pretty harsh, for my initial dark age I was 1/2 way through before I could use the policies.

kcd_swede · Oct 12, 2020

DV t212 score 1764
I wanted to go for an RV but was unable to build a Holy Site in my capitol, and so failed to get a Prophet and switched to Domination mode. So a bit disorganized to start, and then after the first golden age got a dark age (missed golden by 1 point...grrr) and lost a ton of cities and struggled mightily with loyalty for the rest of the game. I was suprised the other civs were so weak, and just rolled over everyone once I got a tech lead.

A difficult start but suprisingly easy finish.

lotrmith · Oct 13, 2020

RV T109

How many cities did you settle?
Two only. Captured a settler and conquered all of Japan and most of China (excepting a free city too far south to bother). Conquered much of Canada while converting and one city from Poland for lack of anything better to do.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: No priority after Shipbuilding (Dromon). Policies: Aimed for Divine Right (Tagmas).

- Did you bother with Diplomacy ?
No
- How did you convert or conquer your enimies?
Mixed sending military units one way and religious units another, since military units effectively act like religious units and this would likely provide (me at least) a faster victory via RV than via DV.
- Were City-States helpful?
Not especially.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
No surprises. I conquered Japan and China and spread my religion to Eleanor and Canada and Poland via conquest-conversion. I manually converted India and Greece who had not founded religions of their own and thus only took a couple missionaries to sway them.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Honestly, not especially. Even on Emperor, this felt like Prince. Byzantium is stupid strong, and combined with Dramatic Ages, which heavily favor the player, and Secret Societies which gave me 4 extra early governor promotions, the game was a breeze. Not just since it was a water map, but the terrain around the capital made easy choke-points that would have been extremely defensible (if I needed to defend, which I did not... founding a religion and picking Crusade made for quick work of Japan and China, especially as China had a dark age... and I also picked up a Vampire which are stupid strong). I did not even need, or even have the opportunity to use, Tagmas or build more than one Hippodrome (which came before Divine Right and thus only granted me a heavy chariot). I already expected Byzantium to be strong but man....

arthur486 · Oct 16, 2020

not a valid result - restarted around T30 as I did not know Dramatic Age rules well :lol:

RV @ T119
I went with the usual RV plan, but tried to improve the execution and adapt it to Dramatic Ages & Byzantium strengths:

Totally peaceful game, try to have declared friendships so that war cannot be declared on me
Settle no more than 5 cities (settled 4, liberated 1 from China's dark age, later liberated 1 from Japan's dark age and finally settled a forward city)
Establish Religion and keep it to 2 beliefs
Mahabodhi Temple FTW!
Keep Golden Ages rolling, even more important in this game mode
On the tech side, go for Cartography, although here it was not really necessary
Try to convert the last civs around the same time. I managed to do this with France & Poland; this was also the reason behind the final, forward city, where I was supposed to chop out a HS and buy Apostles, but the existing ones actually managed to arrive a bit sooner than originally expected.

It was a very nice game and I'm satisfied with my victory time; however, there are still refinements to the timing to be made.

I like Dramatic Ages, they definitely add some drama to the game :mischief:

I started counting Era Score in the Ancient Age to make sure I get a GA next, so good practice for the next 6otM.

Thank you 6otM team, it was a very nice game!

Spoiler Turn by turn report :

rozhouse · Oct 17, 2020

DV T121

- How many cities did you settle?
4 settled, 24 captured.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mining, Bronze Working, Sailing, Astrology, Iron Working, Cartography

- Did you bother with Diplomacy?
Got Greece to declare a joint war on Poland with me for 28 gpt from them, it saved me as I was losing -0.1 gpt before then.

- How did you convert or conquer your enemies?
Japan I took out with warriors and a galley. The rest I used Dromons extensively, having one army of swordsman + dromons/galleys attack Poland/Greece, another similar army attacked China, then Canada - where my swordsman dealt with Canada and my navy broke off to go find France, who I eventually conquered with two dromons, a caravel and a vampire captured Paris in 3 hits on its own. India was the last capture with swordsmen and a second vampire.

- Were City-States helpful?
Mexico City was essential early game for gold from my trade route to them.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I kept expecting to find a wonder (think I've become too reliant on the GOTM starts being super broken) and so ended up researching Astrology too late. Even so I was on 57/60 Great Prophet Points at around turn 60 and India only had around 21, still by the next turn they somehow made 40 in a turn and stole the last GP from me! This slowed down my game quite considerably I think as I wasn't able to get Crusade which had been my original plan.

I almost didn't make a classical golden age, I was saved by capturing Kyoto on the last turn before the end of the era (screenshot below), for 4 era points which took me right to the limit - without that this probably would have taken a lot longer since I had continual issues with loyalty.

India added on around 10 turns to my victory time since Chennai flipped twice and I attacked them too late so they had built walls which combined with their UU made them pretty tough to deal with, especially since my dromons couldn't reach Patna.

- Did you enjoy the game?
I did, I loved the fact I could traverse the whole map without needing cartography and found the start near Japan more challenging than expected with an Emperor difficulty.

Vlad Dracula · Oct 30, 2020

RV T259 1154
How many cities did you settle? 7captured 14
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
- Did you bother with Diplomacy ? Yes I mad a few friends until l was strong enough to take my landmass
- How did you convert or conquer your enimies? I conquered China and Japan because I didn't want to share. I also took some cities from Greece because they were dragged into one of the wars. I converted the other civs after taking my land.
- Were City-States helpful? Yes they helped with my wars.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? I don't recall any lol
- Did you enjoy the game? Yes.
-What do you think of the random tech/civ trees? I didn't even notice that it was used lol

leif erikson · Nov 6, 2020

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

You may continue to post here and attach saves if you wish.

6otM 96 AAR

Knowtalent

Emperor

Drac00La

Chieftain

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tarafran

Warlord

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Knowtalent

Emperor

tarafran

Warlord

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TheFinalChiTown

Chieftain

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Email10

Swedish Viking

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Tarry

Chieftain

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kcd_swede

Jag är Viking!½

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lotrmith

King

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arthur486

Warlord

rozhouse

Chieftain

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Vlad Dracula

Warlord

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leif erikson

Game of the Month Fanatic

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