6otM156 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM156 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.

 

[cas]

One city, T122 religious victory.

I enjoyed the unique ability a little too much...exploring the map, converting zombies/barbs, and getting tribal huts rather than concentrating on the victory condition.

Inland Sea is easy to find the AI for religious conversion. And the less zombies I convert, the more likely the AI cities are razed...thus requiring less missionaries. I may play again to see how much I can improve the time.

I thought about going domination, but the AI distance and unique units would have made that difficult to achieve quickly. I'm sure the AI were picked with that in mind.

Thanks for hosting the game. It was a lot of fun.

cas

replayed focusing on the VC. T78 religious win. Map knowledge may have helped a little, but not much. Exploration goes pretty fast with the unique ability and zombies.

 

[Planktonic]

Dom Vic, turn 181/182.

Started this one before finishing GOTM 155, and then managed to get it done as well.

Religious Victory would undoubtedly have been much quicker (nice game from cas !) but I don't like to play for RV as I find it too one-dimensional. Plus the zombies seemed well-made for a Domination approach. Was able to get a zombie horde of about 6 units very quickly, which was sent (along with 2 warriors) East and found Nubia and were able to take two cities incl the capital before the end of the Ancient and before walls. After that every civ had walls. The first army kept travelling clockwise around the inland sea, taking out Vietnam, then Sumeria, then Macedon, before heading for Tbilisi. In the meantime a second army was formed to take out Gaul to the West, and then was able to take Patna with faith-bought cuirassiers. Unusually for a Domination game I did found a religion, as I wanted to get good production in my main cities using Dance of the Aurora/Work Ethic.

Two lessons learned: 1. Apparently zombies don't work with a battering ram even though they are technically melee units. 2. If you use a levied melee unit to convert a barbarian unit using Unifier Qin's ability, it becomes your permanent unit!

I don't think the AIs performed well on this map- few cities for an Emperor game, and very slow to develop science and culture overall. I still feel zombies have been definitely nerfed- I didn't test it in game but their mutation strength wasn't increasing anywhere near as fast as in previous games. I prefer the older, deadlier zombies! Although towards the end of the game they definitely wiped out multiple other AI cities.

Thanks for a fun game, look forward to the next new Leader!

 

[tarafran]

DV-136
Started with warrior then a settler to get 2 Campi.
My cap was surrounded right away with Zombies that got converted .From there I send them around the map converting more units an Zombies
Manage to steall two settlers on each side of the map, bought catapults and rolled all the civ.
Had a bit of loyalty issues as I went for Pingi X4 two get faster in the trees and get GP.
did not bother with religion
All GA
fun game thanks

 

[lakeiron]

RV T137 (just need to spread to Can Tho with the missionary and win)

7 cities lined up at the edge of the tundra to maximise Dance of Aurora and Work Ethic.
Zombies were great for exploration. Moksha and the Exodus of Evangelists GAs are great combo to have sometimes 7 or 8 spread Apostles.

Thanks for the game.

 

[Metxe]

RV T109

Hi,

Here is my first contribution to GOTM. I tried sometimes the GOTM here in civfanatics a long time ago but I’m a player from the civ.fr community. I’ll try to be as clear as I can but I play with the game in french and there must be some ingame terms that I translate poorly.

At first, I tried a DV but I was clearly too slow so I restart a game trying RV and I think it is the fastest option as I finished in 109 turns.
I respected your rule to not reload the game but it is kind of frustrating sometimes and I clearly could have finished at least 10turns before.
I must admit that I optimized my first 20turns and then I restarted a game without reloading. I don’t know if this is OK with your rules ?

- 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?
I wanted to create my religion as soon as possible and then spread it. I thought to take some cities with zombies but in the end I just explored the map with them.
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Worker-stonehenge-holy sites(but I think it's better holy site first)-shrine-then I don't remember
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Tech :I focused astrology and then not directly but quite quickly shipbuilding (faster to go by sea to Macedonia and Sumer)
Civics : I focus a government then temple but I should have rush for temple directly
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Zombies => exploration and defense
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
I bought a settler on early game and (re)capture one that the zombies took from Gaul.
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Bought one or more settler (or capture it) seems important to generate more faith point
Stonehenge interesting for an early religion and I also constructed another religious wonder
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
I wanted to take dance of the aurora but in the end I took desert folklore as I think it was more interesting desert tiles for a second holy sites
But as you can see on the screenshot, I misplaced my capital city holy site as I thought I have dans of the aurora. I don't know how much faith I lost with this mistake and I only noticed while writing this summary like "holy horsehocky why my holy sites are placed like that ?" when I saw the screenshot.
I think it's possible to win in less than 80turn with no mistake and optimization.
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
I took autocracy but I had no preference
I forgot to change my cards during a lot of time. I was only interested in the bonuses for holy sites, other cards were not mandatory I think.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Pingala => accelerate culture generation to get temple faster and science to go by sea
Amani => the religious city state offers a relic when you discover a natural wonder, unfortunately I only won 1 relic with this city state as Georgia had a lot of envoys and Amani there.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Trade as much as I could to be able to buy workers and buildings
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Only golden ages
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Too easy to deal with zombies with China !
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Gaul founded a religion 5turn before victory and Macedonia lost a city because of barbarians and I needed to rush there to convert another one
- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes !

 

[Eyswein]

Hi,

Here is my first contribution to GOTM.

Welcome! Bienvenu (an attempt at French; apologize if I got it wrong)

 

[tarafran]

Bienvenue

 

[Metxe]

RV T79

Thank you guys, and Tarafran is right, Bienvenue with en "e" (silent "e" of course, if not french would be too easy)

I would not describe too much this game. I was very very very lucky and got everything I needed from the early tribal villages (faith for pantheon, relic, builders). I even stole a settler to barbarian close to the dead sea and build another holy site there.

The plan was simple, get a religion asap with stonehenge and then spread it with missionaries only (cheaper).
I only bought 1 settler and stole a city to Gaul when they attacked me.

Let's try the 157th GOTM now !

 

[GaidinX]

T123 RV

Fun, relaxing game. Spent way too much time getting some fun wonders and running all over the map with the infinitely expanding army. So many tribal huts!

Religion - Desert Folklore pantheon (got a relic in 2nd hut), production from HS adjacency and Religious Zeal (no movement penalties) when founded - later added World Church (+2 faith/city) and the Mosque (extra charge to missionaries/apostles)

I took Moksha to start and got him all the up to extra promotion for apostles quickly - got Magnus for chops in 3rd city and used the large amount of woods to chop Mahabohdi and the wonder (Hagia Sophia?) that gives extra charges. Had a CH in 2nd city to finance the expanding army and cities 3/4/5 were near other luxuries for happiness and to keep money rolling in. Almost finished Kotu-kin in cap and Petra in last city.

First wonder was Temple of Artemis - 13 tiles in range for the bonus, most of which were in the capitol! One of the best I've ever had.

Stonehenge in cap gave me an early apostle - got the two best promotions of -75% exiting and triple strength in foreign cities - Used this to instantly convert Gaul and Georgia's Holy Cities the turn after they founded their religion. Should have sent missionaries with it and could have shaved a lot of turns off the game. Got two additional cities from captured settlers - one in the NW that got a HS and helped convert everyone to west and south.

All ages golden - took Exodus of the Evangelist option both times for 6 movement on all units- still had the great wall and crouching tiger in reserve in Medieval but had already hit golden. Kept waiting on Theocracy, but realized I never focused enough culture and had tons of faith, so spammed missionaries and a few apostles (4k faith in a turn). Game was then dodge zombies while moving all units till victory.

Thanks for a great game again - now off to more China and science...

Spoiler Cities :

Spoiler Map :

 

[bbbearbbb]

RV-141.
Late entry will try and get onboard the next one if time permits.
Got off to a rollicking start but Sumeria and Macedon had their capitals surrounded by about 30 zombies and my missionaries kept getting killed, then another religion was founded around turn 90, then another, then was declared war on by Gaul!
Cheers.

 

[Monthar]

Dom Vic Turn 262 Score 1914

I messed around way too much instead of focusing on the victory type. However, Bombers made short work of the cities.

 

[CyberBocal]

Slow religious victory at turn 256.
From what I remember, I settled on the eastern bank of the small lake, stuck between desert and toundra, being afraid to die of thirst by crossing a desert of an unkonw size. My first builds were scouts and warrior to try to explore this big world while being able to resist the zombies. I chose Dance of the Aurora to make use of all this toundra, then built Stonehenge to quickly get a religion.
I spent too much time hesitating between religion or war (I knew religion would be faster, but I couldn't resist to experience these zombies), so I developped both, which worked for a time, allowing me to capture a first city from Ambiorix, with religion helping to keep the city at peace. But my small army of zombies had to retreat in front of the walls of the Gaullic capital with heavy losses. Meanwhile I stupidly lost my vulnerable second city, along with its precious holy site, all razed by barbarians which I underestimated.
Finally I decided to really focus on religion, popping as many missionaries and apostles I could afford, to spread to the world the religion of the Big Whole, which was quite easy, apart from a few "heated religious discussions" with India. With the zombie power increasing, I finally managed to capture the capital Aduatuca, which made me several enemies, but I managed to keep some cordial relationships with Ba Trieu and Alexandre was my BFF.
For my return to Civ after a break of almost 2 years, that was a refreshing game and I much enjoyed the ability to convert the zombies to build a big wandering and moaning army.

 

[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.

 

[lordofcivs]

Didn't finish the game yet, but I must add that this was a really fun to play GoTM. I went for Domination, and I would have finished the game somewhere around 250 turns. As I wasn't really playing for a competition, I didn't bother to go for finishing the game. I might give another attempt to play this for RV, as it seems lots of people have enjoyed that.