6otM142 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM142 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?
- 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? Where did you settle your first few cities?
- 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 game modes affect or impact your play?
- 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.

 

[Monthar]

Science Victory turn 260, Score1451 It was a peaceful easy game.

 

[lakeiron]

Well, I have ambivalent feelings... I have travelled the 50 lightyears by turn 245, but still did not fulfill the requirements of this 6otM, because accidentally I have already won a Cultural Victory at turn 226. I went on to see what would have been my SV result...
I sensed the danger since around turn 190, but even though I sold all my great work that I could and did not do anything that would increase my tourism, the ball was already rolling. A few monopolies basicall scr*wed me over, they are too powerful 3 of those 5 monopolies were achieved by only controlling a single instance of them.

So I guess I failed to produce a valid result, but still it was a fun game. Thanks!

 

[Eyswein]

I have travelled the 50 lightyears by turn 245, but still did not fulfill the requirements of this 6otM, because accidentally I have already won a Cultural Victory at turn 226.

Always wonder if I should turn off other VC's on the easier games or if trying to avoid them is part of the fun.

 

[lakeiron]

Always wonder if I should turn off other VC's on the easier games or if trying to avoid them is part of the fun.

Tough question, but I still wouldn't switch the other VCs off. I should have been able to avoid if I noticed it 20-30 turns before and let at least one of them grow bigger. I basically smothered all AI financially throughout the game.

 

[Monthar]

Trying to avoid the other VCs is part of the fun.

 

[Planktonic]

Sci Vic, turn 259

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?
Started out peacefully, then went into a period of extended war when I became fearful that Monopolies would lead to a culture victory, then ended peacefully after eliminating 4 civs (so no tourists from those civs).

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Scout/slinger/settler, Holy Site, then prayers until I got the first religion. Wanted to make sure I got the first religion.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Astrology, then to writing, then to horsemanship, then to celestial navigation.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Planned a lot to make sure I got good adjacencies for Holy Sites and Campuses due to appeal. Never had a war of liberation or a war declared on me except Emergencies- do those trigger the Australia bonus? I don't think so.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
Settled 9 on the home continent, probably about 11 or 12 total settled, had 29 at the end after conquering Scotland/Canada/Eleanor/Gandhi.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
I dunno- can't think of anything that was specifically critical.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Earth Goddess for the faith. Choral Music/Tithe for the first two beliefs. Tithe was a mistake- should have chosen either World Church or Cross Cultural Dialogue- forgot about the enhanced gold revenue with Monopolies.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Autocracy to Monarchy to Theocracy to Communism to Synthetic Technocracy.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Started with Magnus to boost city growth- this was a mistake as well, as it took a long time to get trade routes going to take advantage of that. Used Moksha with Divine Architect extensively later. Pingala of course for the Space Race.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
No Diplomacy to speak of.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
All Golden. But it was so easy to get Era score that I deliberately delayed meeting other civs and circumnavigating the world to keep that Era score for the next Era. This had the good effect of limiting tourism, but meant I didn't meet some useful city states for a long time.

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Was watchful of Monopoly-boosted tourism the whole time; it helped a lot with gold generation.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Built Kilwa very late and had saved 10 envoys to take control of Mitla as the second city state for the science boost, only for Teddy to pour an additional 15 envoys (for a total of 24!) into Mitla a few turns later. Debated going to war to destroy him but it was already late and it would have meant losing 15% from Geneva to gain 15% from Kilwa for some time. I got tired of all the unit management and just coasted at that point.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, first time playing Australia in GS (played one game with them when I first got the vanilla version, never finished it. This make 5 weeks in a row for a first time civ victory for me from GOTM!)

 

[Planktonic]

Always wonder if I should turn off other VC's on the easier games or if trying to avoid them is part of the fun.

My whole strategy of making sure I got Choral Music was specifically so I wouldn't have to build many Theater Squares for culture, so as to avoid tourism and the unwanted CV. That's definitely part of the fun/challenge with the lower level Science games.

But I wasn't too impressed with Choral Music after all- suspect I might have been better off with either Work Ethic/Desert Folklore (given the high adjacencies) or even Feed the World. If I have tie I might try again with a different approach....

 

[Xtowers]

Science victory 364.

Console player here, so unofficial participant. Started off awesome with 3 campuses at very high adjacency bonuses, +14 to +18 with the card. Played a tall game heavy on trade, but I think that kind of stalled me mid game. No wars all game, everybody was very friendly. Was expecting an earlier victory, but fun nonetheless. I've played John Curtain before, but this time with the map type I couldn't rely on the pastures for yields for the first time. Very interesting, but had all the housing in the world. My capital got really close to 40 population.

 

[ferenginar]

Made hard work of that. Some very poor play. SV T381 Score 1393

Had a crash on T92, resumed, no further issues.

 

[starfishpaws]

SV turn 388

- 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?
Initially, I was planning a Sci push with enough Culture to fend off the other Civs but I failed pretty spectacularly at the second part

Any interesting decision points?
I'm not an advanced player (still moving from Prince to King) and I had serious problems balancing everything throughout the game. I pushed Science and Sailing in the early game to get Campuses up and find other Civs/Wonders. Unfortunately, I didn't put enough effort into Culture and missed out on some important Civics. I also almost got taken out by Eleanor's CV at the end

I also dropped the ball on hitting all my Insp/Eureka goals

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Slinger, slinger, scout, holy site, settler

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Pushed for Astrology first, then Archery first in case of barbarians, then Writing

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
I tried to maximize appeal for both campus and holy site to get the extra yield and used Outback Stations for that extra bit of Production

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
I only had four cities total, three on the main island and one to the west. I focused too much on setting up infrastructure in existing cities and by the time I sent settlers off the main island there were very few places left to settle

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Because of the balance issues I mentioned, I ended up with only 3 Wonders: University of Sankore/Etemanaki/Eiffel Tower. If I were doing it again I'd add a lot more. My army was the largest for most of the game but it was significantly smaller than I'd normally have. Once the local barbarians were dealt with there wasn't any real reason to add a lot of units so I just kept the existing ones upgraded

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
I ended up choosing River Goddess because I hoped it would give me extra growth and happiness while I was focusing on Science. Then Jesuit Education and Wats. I really under utilized Faith in the game - another problem with balance - and instead of using JE to fill Theater Squares I ended up ignoring them. Also ended up with only one Wat because I forgot to balance out the Science I was pushing with Faith/Religion

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Republic/Monarchy/Communism. I never made it to the more advanced governments because of my lack of focus on culture. In the end I was using Collectivization for the extra Food and Prod. Also Integrated Space Cell for the boost

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
I had Pingala in Canberra for the Sci/Culture boost (even though I dropped the ball on Culture) and Magnus in my only city off the main Island. I kept Amani in Geneva to keep up with the 15% science boost from being Suzerian

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
I ended up with 95% of my trading being domestic because the bonuses were better. I only had 1 of most luxuries so never had many deals going on except for keeping up Open Borders

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
The Medieval Era was Golden but after that I had only normal eras until the Information Age when I dropped into a Dark Age

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
I usually play with Heroes mode turned on and I don't think I really compensated for missing the effects of Maui/Sinbad/Himiko

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The biggest problem I had was running into my lack of balanced planning by end game. Eleanor and I were pretty much tied by end game and if it had taken me a few turns longer she would have won her CV

- Did you enjoy your game?
For the most part. A problem I have with SVs and my level of play is that they become dull in the end game as I'm pushing the space projects and don't have much else going on

 

[Planktonic]

Was interested to do an experiment so I played this again, this time pretending Australia was Mali and going for a Desert Folklore/Work Ethic combo.

Result: SV at turn 234, 25 turns better than my first run with Choral Music. I think it was a real but moderate improvement (admittedly, I had knowledge of the map as well).

I still very much underplayed culture, still too afraid of CV I think. I relied almost exclusively on Nan Madol, the World Church religious belief and population for culture. Only built a single theater square for the Era score and for 7 different types of districts. As a result didn't reach Communism until after Earth Satellite had been completed, and didn't reach Synthetic Technocracy until I started the laser stations. I wasn't anywhere close to a CV so I probably had plenty of room to spare in terms of getting more early culture without threatening for CV, which would probably have cut down the time to victory a bit more as well.

Thx again for an instructive game!

 

[andraes]

Sci Victory. 9-12-22. Turn 330. Score 1,235

I'm new to the idea of making games go fast, so I had to constantly remind myself to focus on the objective. After filling out my continent (5 cities) and the islands to the west (4 cities). I mostly focused on Campus Research, then as my capitol got the rocket launches going I tried to get my nearby cities up to par for power requirements. Late game I used the Colonial Taxes policy to make some of my island cities production powerhouses (or at least equal to my capitol).

I think my start was something like, slinger, builder, settler, then campus, settler, builder, settler.... I never went to war once, but fought off barbs throughout the map in order to take over islands and keep my trade routes alive. I didn't build any holy sites or encampments and only 2 or 3 theater squares (for the archeologists).

Having all the mountains and oceans made getting high appeal locations easy. Most of my campuses were at least +5, though the lack of rivers (and floodplains/dam spots) made production a little less easy for my playstyle. I mostly overcame that with trade routes and mines.

I didn't use monopolies much, but I did have a corp for turtles and marble.

I was most surprised by having two Indias and two Englands, lol. I enjoyed playing with Austraila, only my second time ever, and this was a fun map to play on.

 

[isopaha]

SV T309. Peaceful game again. Very slow start due to the terrain, but it got better later. Missed pyramids by a few turns, but built Petra for ages and got it to my 2nd city. Should have found the western islands much sooner, that would have helped in the early mid-game. 13 cities in the end, out of which 1 useless one I got via culture. AI has become a better user of spies in the late game, should have built more than 1 for spy defense myself. And the one I had was useless for some reason, perhaps some patch affects this.

 

[Chrumo]

SV 224

Spoiler t224 :

Peaceful game. Went for Desert Folklore and converted quite a couple of cites to benefit from Tithe. Settled a lot of cities in the later stages of the game, my start was mostly on absurdly powerful Holy Sites and Campuses in the first 4-5 cities.
This HS speaks for itself:

Spoiler Very Holy Site :

Quite a fun game, the landscape was very interesting to settle.
Thanks for the save!

 

[ummd]

CV 230

Was ~4 turns from SV. Had two spaceports pumping laser missions, but I guess I built too many wonders….

Played peacefully, blocked Scotland on the isthmus early with a free Barbarian settler. Settled eastern and western islands and spammed campuses, holy sites, and harbors.

DesertFoklore+WorkEthic combo was hugely powerful. And shipyards, of course.

 

[[KAC]Bobek]

CV 278
This is my first Gotm here. Peaceful game. Initially, I played for the construction of the first commercial and harbor districts. then, for money, buying more what you can in each of the districts, including the scientific ones. I didn't have religion until the end of the game
Thanks for the work for the author of GOTM

 

[katiba]

SV Turn 441 Score 1201
Not as good as many here. Still only playing my games at the Prince level. But I think I will move to King soon.
I think I spent too much time initially looking for the ideal spot for my first city.
Once the first city was established got bogged down dealing with barbarians.
Had to play catch up in the science department but ended up ahead.
Founded a religion but only intentionally spread it to my cities.
No war. Was friends with everyone. So never really got the benefit of the production boost for war being declared on me.
Was a bit worried of a Diplomatic Win for myself or another Civ so had to put my votes in the world congress to ensure that did not happen.

 

[[KAC]Bobek]

SV 234
I don't know if it was possible to play a second time,
Now I played by quickly conquering three leaders. It was a more effective development strategy.

 

[Tarry]

Science on turn 261.
BUT Cultural 252 , 1316 points with the spaceship 5 light years in flight, with 45 to go.

- 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?
Religion to boost science, avoid doing culture. Get to become good communists for more science.

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Warrior, Archer, Builder, HolySite, Settler.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Astronomy, then Iron and horses for early war.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Outbacks were great with all that desert. Diggers were very strong units when I got them. They killed a lot of barbs

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
Settled all around, took the desert area. Scotland was uppity so once I had a swordsman and a couple of horses he was removed from the game. That was it for war. I ended up with a dozen cities.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
I focused a lot more on harbours rather than commercial hubs because of the land I was on,

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Desert folklore and work ethic were the main drivers of my economy, monumentality to get many many free workers and settlers.
Several other religions tried to come and sway me, but my reprisals soon saw them off.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Oligarchy for war, then I dropped that and beelined to theocracy until I could communist for the rest of the game.
I built by government plaza too late.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Moshka, was very important, he built so many districts for me. The speed he bootsraps cities is great.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Peaceful after conquering Scotland. Eleanor didn't like me, but that was all.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
golden all the way

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
The monopolies were too much, they gave me too much tourism. I won a cultural victory 9 turns too soon.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Couple of crashes, but I reloaded and just played the same way.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes. No played civ for a while, so a prince game was a good opener again. But part way through the game civ6 reflexes came back, wow, they are so weak on price.