6otM126 AAR

Welcome to the 6otM 126 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!
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- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
- Did you bother with culture?
- Did you go for religion?
- How did you pump your DV?
- Were City-States helpful?
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- How were the Game modes?
- Did you enjoy the game?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.
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The Holiday break has been kind to me, and allowed me to indulge a bit of Civ.

Diplo Victory, turn 292 (291 in HoF)

I have only played to Diplo Vic once before, with Kristina. This was quite a different and interesting challenge. I decided to approach it with a "Modified Lily Lancer" approach:
1. Early war to cripple Civs on my home continent to allow me maximum expansion, but don't take the capital to avoid the -5 penalty to diplo favor.
2. Then build all the relevant Wonders and win all World Congress votes until the Modern era, when the votes on who gets or loses Diplo Vic points begin.
3. Before the Modern Era Congress begins, eliminate all other civs save one, ensuring you can win every vote with your accumulated Diplo favor.
4. Along the way, establish a religion and put pagodas in every city.
5. Suz all city states of course and build the Orszaghaz wonder.

This plan mostly worked but was maddeningly (slightly) foiled by one thing: I got to the Industrial and didn't know exactly when the Modern would start, so started eliminating Civs. It was easy to eliminate everyone and let Matthias live, and then I was waiting for the first Modern Congress. At that point I had 16/20 points: Statue of Liberty/Potala/Mahabodhi for 7, and I had won 9/10 Congress votes over the 5 preceeding Congresses. In an extremely frustrating turn of events, the 30 turn World Congress cycle initiated a Congress **after the very last turn of the Industrial but before the Modern turn 1 could begin**. That was on turn 270, and it was the 6th Congress and only had 2 votes, which of course I easily won, but leaving me with 18 Diplo Victory points instead of the anticipated 20. So I had to either wait for 30 turns or get the Tech (Seasteds) and Civic (Global Warming Mitigation) points. Got Seasteds on turn 284 (if I hadn't missed an early WC vote I would have won right there) and GWM on turn 291.

Not a single Aid Request was called for the entire game, or it could have ended much earlier of course.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
My usual: Astrology first, then Horseback Riding, then get to Apprenticeship.

- Did you bother with culture?
No theater squares, relied exclusively on Choral Music and population.

- Did you go for religion?
Yup: Choral Music and Pagoda for first two beliefs, then Tithe as the third. Never completed the religion.

- How did you pump your DV?
Monarchy plus Renaissance walls. The half-price Baths were also awesome.

- Were City-States helpful?
Valetta was key and really breaks a game like this. I was running a high faith empire anyway, and the ability to just faith-buy Renaissance walls in almost every city meant I *always* was running way ahead on Diplo favor. In fact, with Valetta war becomes a desirable option: if you conquer a 3 city Civ, you can come out *ahead* in Diplo favor even with the -5 penalty on the cap since you gained +6 from three Renaissance walls you didn't have previously.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Missing a World Congress in the Modern Era was maddening. Had Golden Classical, Medieval and Renaissance, but a Dark Industrial. Luckily everyone else (except Dido) was also Dark in the Industrial, so warmongering was still relatively facile.

- How were the Game modes?
Took Owls of Minerva just to try something different from my usual Voidsingers; I think it was a good choice. Corporations didn't make much difference; I saved a bunch of Great Merchants in case I wanted/needed to make a Corporation/Products but didn't see the need for it. Was hoping Dramatic Ages would cause some AI capitals to rebel, but only one did (Canberra) and that was only after I had already captured all his other cities (it eventually flipped to me and I took it sionce it didn't make any difference at that point).

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes I did! It forced me to think differently which always makes for a good GOTM!

Thanks for the game!

 

Unfocused, as are most of my games, going to remedy that some day. I like to build up and out and stay peaceful. Started on the Marble.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mostly pick what I need to enhance the first ring of the first city then the lowest cost item. I know this is a foolish way to grow, but most everything is useful. Going to try tech scramble next time.
- Did you bother with culture?
Yes,
- Did you go for religion?
Yes. Faith based buys are generally quite helpful.
- How did you pump your DV?
Claiming suzerain on as many City-States as possible and voting wins
- Were City-States helpful?
Yes,
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
--Losing the first 3 military encounters was quite annoying, but I recovered and sent replacements out in pairs.
--Found that Great persons can repair pillaged tiles like the builders/military engineers.
--Most of Novopangea is covered in Free Cities. Going to continue the game to see if I can subdue them before 500. I tried to capture them , but with -26 loyalty per turn could not figure out how to keep them happy, so going to raze and and rebuild.
--Was annoyed that I could not raze Canberra, so it prevented me from starting a city, but next time it goes into revolt I will pillage it down to nothing in hopes it will not exert the same amount of negative influence when I turn it over again.
--Cultists are annoying was debating on declaring war just to get rid of them.

- How were the Game modes?
Had not done secret societies before. Interesting feature. I have to wonder if the assignment of the computer players is random, or dependent on what I pick.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, always.

 

Culture Victory Turn 195, Score 1484

I had one crash during turn rollover, reload save included.

I was up to 12/20 diplo points, but I built too many wonders and ended up with a culture victory. I built a few more cities, flipped some cities and captured some from the Free Cities.

 

Had to abandon the game at T303. Had 19 victory points before the last vote (and the first one with possibility to vote for diplo victory). Result of the vote was net -1. It had already been a 'next turn marathon' for 100 turns, so I opted not to continue that for 30+ turns. I believe diplo games are mainly a matter of luck and perseverance (incl. learning by heart what are the AI's favorite resolutions), I'll remember to skip them in the future (together with religious).

I was able to avoid cultural victory by gifting all my GW (about 10) to Japan and then letting all my GP stand on the map. Also had to stop my wonder spamming. I guess for diplo victory any civ is equal, can't say anything about Rome in that sense.

 

T311 Dip V, I was at 19 at T303 also and got 1 point for carbon at 311. I am quite a noob at dipv, its normally too longer game for me.
Not one emergency to help out with. Got the 999 error but could still purchase districts if I could be bothered. It makes little difference by that stage.
My main aim of the game was to try and stay ecstatic as much as possible in all cities all game.
Choral, and a few theaters but did not load them just got adjacency off them, I'd probably use fountaines if I was to play again.
I did not fight at all bar barbarians, I did rescue 4 civs cities from free state which may have helped, not sure if it does for a Dipv but it was fun anyway.
Cheers GOTM team.

 

Dipl Vic t270

t6 Relic (!)
t12 Pantheon, I took God of the Forge, thinking my strategy to start would be to wipe out everyone on my continent with Legions, and build a massive Science/Culture civ. and play peacfully with the civs on the other continent after that. The aim being to get to Seasteads and Global Warming Mitigation ASAP. I haven't played a lot of games to Diplo Victory, but it seems like every time that I have I needed to get those two points from Seasteads and GWM to get the win. So why not just make that the main objective?
The immediate neighbourhood was cramped, so went to war early.
t31 Babylon eliminated, t40 Tyre down, t44 Phoenician out. just used warriors and archers.
figured I would need legions to take out Japan, so waited a bit for the upgrade
t66 Japan eliminated. but I think I could have done it earlier with just warriors and archers. Japan wasn't that strong, and no walls came up. plus I had my badass vampire
t72 Religion (Work Ethic and Religious Unity). I later took Stupa by mistake instead of Pagoda (doh! didn't really matter though, in the end I had 1694 excess Diplomatic Favour left over)
t165 I had all three Wonders for Dipl Vic points built.
Then it was a long slog till the end at t270.

I missed two of the World Congress votes for Victory points, but in the end it didn't matter. At the last WC vote to end the game I was at 16 points and I got five points to finish at 21 points, so those lost two points earlier in the game were not necessary.

By midgame I was very worried that I was going to get a Cultural Victory. I ended up gifting to Mattias six cities chock full of Great works of Writing, Art, and Music, in order to pump up his Culture.
Then I established a Cultural Alliance with him since I was getting cities back from him due to Loyalty pressure.
Mattias thought I was the greatest guy ever

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Archery, Iron Working, Seasteads. Monarchy, Global Warming Mitigation. I wanted to get through both trees quickly to get the two Dipl Vic points there at the end.

- Did you bother with culture?
Yes, of course! to get to Global Warming Mitigation.

- Did you go for religion?
yes, I love buying settlers and workers with Faith.

- How did you pump your DV?
had to overcome the -15 Dip Favour penalty for eliminating three civs, so worked hard to suzerain all the city states as quickly as possible. also built a lot of Ren Walls. used Monarchy Legacy

- Were City-States helpful?
well, yes, for the Dip Favour points, but there was a distinct lack of scientific and zero cultural city states. they would have helped

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
nothing really

- How were the Game modes?
the Dramatic Ages was kind of fun. I was getting Golden Age after Golden Age without even trying, then all of sudden I got surprised by a Dark Age in Industrial.
Don't know how that happened. Not paying attention obviously. I had to work to take back a few cities that revolted immediately at the start of that Age.

- Did you enjoy the game?
yes, very much, thanks for the game!