6otM127 After Actions Report

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM127 After Actions Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (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 attach your victory save to your post.

- 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?
- 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? Where did you settle your first few cities?
- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- 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?
- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
- How did the reduced victory conditions impact your game?
- How were the Barbarians?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy your 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.

 

[Planktonic]

SV, turn 278

This felt like a tough game for me- don't think I handled it too well. Haven't played Babylon since the Krampus game from last year, so struggled a bit formulating a strategy apart from just trying to get every Eureka.

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?
Tried to get some early campaigns going, but didn't do too well. Horseman rush against Korea bogged down after taking one city when she threw up walls. Tried again with siege towers/musketmen and got another city but then ran up against Renaissance walls. Only after getting flight was I able to really dominate militarily despite being generally ahead in the most advanced unit for most of the game- not a good performance. Mostly just simmed and focused on getting every Eureka I could- still failed on some (never did find a unit to kill with a spearman for example).

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Obviously the Babylon ability affects everything. Didn't really appreciate it before but it also affects which Great Scientists you would prefer to recruit.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
Settled about 10; ended up capturing 6 -8 more I think. Could have captured more at the end but was focused on pillaging by that time.

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Apprenticeship, then Industrialization. But mostly just tried to get every Eureka and Inspiration I could, much more assiduously than I usually do with other civs.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Focused on Industrial Zones- not only for the production but for the Great Engineer points. For Wonders, built Kilwa, Oracle and Oxford U. and a couple of others. Did not plan well and couldn't place Ruhr Valley. Grandmaster's Chapel was critical at the end to faith-buy units for pillaging.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Divine Spark, mostly to help get a religion. Work Ethic and Tithe for the first 2 beliefs.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Oligarchy to Monarchy to Communism.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Moksha with Divine Architect and of course Pingala with the Space promotion.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?
No real diplomacy. Was at war with 4 civs at the end (an Emergency and a joint DOW from Portugal and Maya). Eliminated Korea. City states were useful for the faith bonuses mostly.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Golden Classical, normal Medieval, golden Renaissance, dark Industrial, heroic Modern, golden Atomic.

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Not much effect from Monopolies afaict; Tech and Civic shuffle was much less of a nuisance with Babylon since you get the technology with the Eureka regardless.

- How did the reduced victory conditions impact your game?
My warmongering was a bit halfhearted in retrospect; if Dom had been available I might have tried harder. Glad that there was no possibility of Culture Victory as it meant I didn't have to worry about Wonders/tourism.

- How were the Barbarians?
Not much of a factor.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The absence of coal in the core empire was the biggest problem- had to settle a far away city just to get the Eureka for Steel. This also meant that artillery was unavailable for quite some time, with a very negative effect on warmongering. Once again used the Science Foundation card and nonstop campus research grants to get both Abdus Salam and Carl Sagan, or this game would have gone on longer still.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Definitely, Babylon is always fun and very different to play, even if I didn't do the best job.

I dunno, is Babylon generally considered a strong civ for Science Victory?

Thanks for the game!

 

[Eyswein]

This felt like a tough game for me...I dunno, is Babylon generally considered a strong civ for Science Victory?

It felt tough in my test runs and took me longer than normal to complete; it seems shuffle usually slows things down even with Babylon. IMHO Babylon is second tier vice top tier for science victory. I believe Babylon is well suited to Shuffle mode most of the game, but the techs that have to be straight researched with no eureka slow them down at the end, especially if unlucky placement of the key future tech.

 

[Monthar]

Science victory turn 278, score 1876
The end game was a slow slog and I forgot to set all my cities to science focus until the last few techs. If I had remembered to set the focus earlier I might have shave a few turns.

 

[Chrumo]

SV 263

Man, the last 100 turns were just flipping the turn over and over. I believe I got to information era at about turn 170, and once I run out of eurekas to get, the painful science grind slowed me down to a slog. In hindsight, I should have gone for some conquest, but there was little motivation to do so since the game was already over at that point, it was just a matter of getting all the techs.

Very powerful start, and quite interesting landscape, I had a lot of fun in the first half of the game Thanks for the seed.

Spoiler t263 :

 

[GaidinX]

Science Victory – Turn 234



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?


Plan was to get every eureka possible and use luxuries for early and long-term gold to afford unit upgrades when I got far enough ahead. Decided to not go for a religion and got and early Campus/GovtPlaza/Commercial Hub up. Had Ancestral Hall before settling more than my core 3 cities


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


Eurekas of course, and the Palgram to get my cities to grow quick for extra districts – focus on 2 campus/3 commerce/industrial


- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?


Had 4 core cities – settled 2 more for luxuries, 4 for strategic resources, and 1 for the Great Barrier Reef (with Turtles luxury corp/industry) Captured 5 from Australia and about 6 from Portugal – Waited long enough for them to have built me lots of campuses and encampments to really boost GPP and science/turn.


- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?


Kind of did whatever eureka I could see to do for a bit – then remembered easy IZ option after finally getting iron. Tried to be friendly with everyone and focused on getting envoy quests. Used trade routes to grow the capitol and then new cities.


- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?


Mausoleum for extra engineer charges – I think I got all of them in the game as well. Missed Kilwa sadly but chopped Oxford and easily built Forbidden City/Potala Palace/Ruhr in capitol. Biosphere for late, cheap power and Estadio to make all cities ecstatic. Built up gold reserves so I could upgrade early units and go to war with man-at-arms/trebuchets and after first city was able to go to line infantry and bombards – artillery before last AUS city fell. I sat outside Perth until AUS finished Alhambra and got Machu Picchu and 6 other wonders in the deal. Big Ben built with $15k in the bank for late buying of Research labs. Build Admunson Scott the turn I won with the insta-buy engineer just for fun.


- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?


No religion, but AUS had culture from HS buildings which helped.


- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?


Republic for the extra amenities later, then Monarchy for the wonder building bonus and the Communism for huge internal trade route buffs and that important raw science bonus. Switched to the final govt that gives power/project bonus once I had the +5% science/Suz card to help out the projects.


- Which Governors were most important; when and why?


Pingala for GPP and cul/sci buff, Magnus for some big chop boosts and later he sat in a city that had 6 factories and power plants feeding him for extra production due to his promotion.



- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?


Got a lot of money out of trading – Allies with almost everyone except AUS once I needed their cities – Portugal denounced me and got to go second. Allies meant they couldn’t spy on me which was great. Cultural alliance with Saladin helped me settle 2 strategic resource cities (coal/oil) without loyalty issues.


- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?


War CS were my friends at first – then money CS for the gold/amentity improvement. Ended up Suz of all city states, though I took over the one directly south in AUS war – too good a location. Auyutal… culture from buildings was a big one to grab once I found it and then Mexico city late for pushing production/amenities to everything


- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?


All golden except normal Medieval – Monumentality/Production from Campus were the choices.


- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?


Extra gold, science, culture – some nicely buffed tiles from monopolies. Shuffle made me use Civlopedia a lot more for the eurekas I couldn't remember.


- How did the reduced victory conditions impact your game?


Couldn’t see army strength, but wasn’t worried – didn’t have to worry about a cultural victory.


- How were the Barbarians?


Great for early bonus era score, never much of an issue. Lot of first promos off them before going to war.


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


Struggled with culture early which slowed me down a bit, plus ones I usually skip were needed to advance – Managed to just get the right Great Scientists to cover techs I wasn’t going to boost and only had to hard research future era to find the projects for Exo – Thankfully Exoplanet was easy to get to and my last pillages got me there. I had Exo before Rocketry like an idiot and then had to refocus on Spaceports – should have promoted Moksha as I had 20,000 faith in the bank as I was winning GPP instead of buying them. Lots of science projects in any city not doing important stuff. Took forever to get tanks as I forgot to get the civic with archeological museums and just used a Great Scientist to get last two Modern boosts.


- Did you enjoy your game?


Had a blast. Thanks for the game. I could have sped it up a bit more but I think I balanced early growth, middle age wars to pillage techs/civics and get a bunch of campuses and commercial hubs and luxuries to really push me far past the AI, then a strong finish to get to space. I don't think a single AI had unlocked Rocketry before I won. Korea was going to try and war me after Exo launched and our Alliance ended, but it was too late. Used cards heavily to boost and had all 4 wonders that gave an extra card as a focus, building 3 and capturing the last. You can barely tell there is a -50% science handicap with the stats at the end.

Oh - a fun thing is that I had so much aluminum and produced it fast enough that all my projects were the aluminum ones - no powered ones needed. First game I've had that happen.

Posted a pic - I use UI mods and just play these for the challenge.

 

[tarafran]

SV224

I settled 1East to get a better start and got meteorite shower right away for a free chariot ,settled the second city south west to get a 4 Holy site to get my religion going to be monumentality for the first GA.Built Apenada in the cap with my first campus (4)the gov plaza and the chapel to get my new cities out (around 12 )
Picked Magnus+1 first to chop and get my settlers out. I picked goddess of marshes to get a Petra city on the desert coast up north Production for my religion.
Can't remember my second pick.
Australia declared war on me pretty early but could not really reach me as as I was Suz of Cardiff. I also was Suz of Valetta who got killed by Korea and led to a vote to liberate it. I had a small army (3 archers ,1warrior and 2 chariots)but Aukland my Suz had a large one that I kept upgrading till turn 200.
The plan was to kill all the civ slowly so I could pillage as much gold, faith,science and culture as possible.
I retrospect I should of built more than one horseman as the one that became a helicopter with the pillage upgrade was away from my main army on the other side of the map.
I got to send my space mission turn 200 and had to pillage Campi one hit at a time instead of all of it with the helo to reach the final tech
I stay friend and ally with Portugal and GuilGamech to that time .
Bought all my spaceport with faith.
Special thanks to Einstein for the game and Eureka map that was really helpful.
I was not so good with the Great person , I need to find the list

I really enjoyed the game
Thanks

 

[TomeTraveler]

SV 258, I forgot to note the score but the ranking was around the Ashoka level I believe.

- 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?

Well, it has been awhile since I've done a GOTM but as I've been playing a fair amount of Civ lately I thought I'd give this one a try. I usually play on Emperor and Immortal as being the best balance of fun and challenge, though both tend to get way too easy as the game goes on and one begins to steamroll. So I was a bit surprised at how simple this game has been though I expect that the map type has a lot to do with it: there's a lot of land, so I didn't have any contact with other major civs early on. Got a bit lucky in that barbarians were easy to deal with as well.

With only science enabled, my basic strategy has been to work primarily on gaining eurekas while building up good money and production because the UA will take care of a lot of science. It worked well and I had a huge tech lead by victory, several opponents had spaceports built but none had the techs to start the projects yet.

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

Without the eurekas on steroids the whole plan would have to change, of course.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?

No wars, no captures. Babylon, on the copper hill next to start hex. This was primarily based on where I thought I could get an industrial zone with adjacencies on two aqueducts and a dam. I also left room for Ruhr Valley but ended up settling the second-aqueduct city (Mari, the fifth city I founded) next to that hex, which I think makes it ineligible for Ruhr. The extra two gold per turn was a factor in location as well. The second city, Durmuti, went west to settle behind the two stone hills west of Babylon. I chose this location over my third city (which I settled on the coast between two mountains east of Babylon because I figured Durmuti would have better early production, and give me the Masonry eureka to allow harvesting of the stone in the spot I wanted for Babylon's campus. After that...had a lot of cities, I think 18 or 19 in total.

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?

I don't usually play tech shuffle so this was a bit interesting (I may play it more, going forward).

Tech research was anything I felt unlikely to get the Eureka for and for the most part I called that right. The first three, Astrology, Celestial Navigation, Cartography, Square Rigging, Radio, and so on.

Civics, Foreign Trade, Political Philosophy, Medieval Faires, Exploration (was way down the line from shuffling, ouch), Communism.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?

Military and settlers and builders early on, was happy to keep military fairly slim thanks to distance from other major civs and few barb problems. Two campuses, commercial hubs, and harbors after turn 50, then a large expansion of trade and industry, with more settlers and a big push for campuses past turn 100.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?

Religious settlements, free settler. No religion.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?

Fairly late in all of my governments far, chose Classical Republic right off for the economic policies and the legacy, Divine Right soon as I could switch for the extra policies, and the Merchant Republic soon as I hit that Civic (well past turn 100, very late). Policies have been socketed and unsocketed many times depending on need, with Natural Philosophy, Colonization, Serfdom, and the wonder-building and trade-improvement policies all battling for the economic slots available and Merchant confederation for the diplomatic. Communism late.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?

Magnus was all over the place, early on in capital but after some initial chopping and settlers Pingala didn't move from Capital. Had intended to use Reyna mostly for cash but turned out to move around quite a bit to buy districts. Liang mostly stayed in one place to buy/build builders.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?

A rare game where I ended up friends with ALL the other civs, and allied with five of them. Used international trade to finance a lot of my buildings.

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?

Helpful but not as much as I'd have liked, with no scientific states and two of the three trade states and all of the cultural getting large delegations before I even met them, so getting suzerain on several of those took a lot of time.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?

Medieval age normal, all others golden. Monumentality, Free Inquiry (the normal), Reform the Coinage x2, Heartbeat of Steam x2 I think.

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?

Tech shuffle made me late on some things in the Civic tree, not so much on the Science thanks to the special ability, at least until late when I had to hard research the space project techs and they were all quite late.

- How did the reduced victory conditions impact your game?

I generally try to build a "well-rounded" civ in my games, I didn't spend quite as much effort on Theater Squares as normal. The lack of score and other info on the score ribbon made judging just how far ahead or behind I was, difficult.

- How were the Barbarians?

Not much trouble at all though one camp spawn in the large gap between Yerevan on my eastern border, and Arabia, and had enough time to develop a significant army, to the extent that when I sent two crossbows and a man-at-arms after it, I lost one of the units in trying to deal with the many swordsmen (and one man-at-arms) it was throwing at me, and I had to send an additional crossbowman and a knight to finish them off.

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

Surprises: Having so much room to myself.
Frustrations: Losing Kilwa Kisiwani the turn before finishing (switched to Casa de Contratacion and finished that, at least). Feudalism and Exploration being shuffled so deeply. Losing Potala Palace half-finished.

- Did you enjoy your game?

Yes indeed!

 

[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.

 

[arthur486]

SV @T179

This is a replay, but the time limit has expired long ago anyway... However, I just now had the time to wrap the game up

Playing science with Babylon was great, and the Shuffle and Corporations mode contributed to how exciting this game felt -- very! I played it in the "standard" way, attacked everyone at one time or another for pillaging (especially future era technologies), and build & bought several Space Ports to get things rolling with chops. For the first time, I managed to get several Space Ports working well (around 5), and also managed to chop out the projects. However, I could have still fine tuned things and shaved off around 5-10 turns from the moment of victory.

Thank you 6otM team for yet another great game!