6otM160 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM160 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.

 

[Planktonic]

Sci Vic, turn 230

Tough map to start, got off to a lousy start, had only about 30 science I think at turn 100. Thank goodness for all the scientific city states and for the best of all possible tech trees at the end....

- 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?
Made it a point to focus on achieving Golden Ages to maintain the science/culture bonus at all times. Getting the first Golden for Classical was a pretty near thing, all the rest were much easier afterwards. Was again afraid of accidental culture victory so made sure I took Choral Music as a religion, then only built 1 Theater Square ( a +6 for the Era Score). Had very low culture throughout which definitely hampered my time. Game ended without my even reaching Globalization....

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Scout, then Holy Site, then Settler.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Astrology first, then Animal Husbandry, Sailing, Mining etc.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Focused on staying Golden throughout. Figured at King level I wouldn't really need the +4 combat bonus.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
Settled 6 initial cities on the main continent, a seventh later to capture a luxury tile. Ended up eliminating Egypt, China and Norway. Had 20+ cities by the end. Settled the cap so I could work the Dyes tile for an early pantheon. This worked as I hoped (especially after first meeting Nazca) and I got Religious Settlements.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
For the first time I tried to use Corporations to build Products to boost science/culture. Not sure it's worth the effort.

Do Products give an increased %yield to the city in which they're housed, or only to the city in which they were created? They seem to give a +3 science or +3 culture up front, but do they also increase the base yield of the city by a given %? Even with that I'm not sure it's worth the effort....

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Religious Settlements as the pantheon. Choral Music and Tithe for the beliefs. never finished the religion.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Classical Republic at first. Used Merchant Republic for the first time, then switched to Theocracy, ended at Communism.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Amani for early suzerainties for the Era score, then Pingala, then Moksha for faith-building districts. Finally Magnus for chopping out space projects.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Traded luxuries, o/w Diplomacy was nonexistent.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
All Golden.

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Afraid of Monopolies for the risk of culture victory, but tried to explore Corporations/Products. Do people really use these things? They seem to come online too late to make any major difference afaict. At least in this game with so many science city states....

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The map was challenging, which made it interesting. Barbarian clans were there, but none of them advanced at all to a city state....

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, thanks for the game!

 

[Monthar]

Science Victory Turn 254, Score 1587

Peaceful game. I need to learn to expand a LOT more in the early game.

 

[Chrumo]

SV 194

Spoiler t194 :

A fun game. The start was not very good, I decided to go for Desert Folkore to make use of the desert tiles. I started with two additional warriors and went to take Nazca for a good Holy Site. I barely managed to secure a Golden Age, after which I started to spam Settlers.

After the first promotion to Magnus, I have decided to try something new and went for Moksha to try and get Faith-buying of districts. This was fairly decent, as I was able to hop around and buy Campuses and Harbours in new cities immedietely, however I really missed the additional Culture that Pingala usually provides at this point.

I scouted much of the world with levied units, meeting all other civs quickly and trading extensively. As soon as I could, I got friendships and alliances, and decided that their cities are so bad that there will be little to gain on potential warmongering. So a fully peaceful game

Managed to find a secluded tundra on the other side of the map, where there were 10 choppable woods/deers, so I sent a settler there along with Moksha and Magnus. The chops were enough to finish Exoplanet Expedition in 2 turns, along with one boosting project. I have recently started to drift towards very few Spaceports for SV, as this tactic is just so much more effective.

Thanks for the save!

 

[MaddAddams]

Victory via Science turn 243.

- 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?
Since this was a lower difficulty setting than I usually play at, I decided not to wage war on my neighbors unprovoked. Both Mali and England attacked some city-states so my peacekeeping troops expelled them, but in neither case did I intentionally take any of their sovereign cities. Venice, however, razed Mali's third biggest city during one of these wars for City State soveriegnity. Oops. I re-settled the location. I had initially planned to get my sea raid on, but the only AI with exposed cities was Norway and Harald liked me a lot and was giving me good trade routes, so I didn't go down this path.
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
I made a lot of military units to start because Nazca's location was too juicy to pass up. As with my previous GOTM entry, I misjudged how much was needed to handle things. They spawned an Archer as soon as I declared war on them and required I throw a lot more units into the meat grinder to take control than I expected. This held my development up about a dozen turns.
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Given the map and my generally pacifist intentions, I gave priority to the top of the tech tree.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Yield bonuses for golden ages is just whipped cream on top of something I was already planning to do, so not much.
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
I went wide pretty hard, settling 20 cities over the course of the game, many during my Monumentality Golden Age in the Medieval Era
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
I went with a Temple of Artemis, Kilwa Kiswani, and Great Zimbabwe in my capital, giving it all of my traders as soon as Great Zimbabwe was online. Nazca became my city that did everything else and had a lot of wonders. I could have planned where to put my Ruhr Valley better, it ended up in a mediocre location. In the Early Midgame I planned for and built a Venetian Arsenal in my primary southern continent city, but it was a waste of production in retrospect.
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
I settled my capital to the West of the Wine, so that I could start with a fieldhand on the Dyes, giving me early Faith. I went Desert Folklore expecting to find more desert and care more about Faith than I did. My core three cities still got solid production of this via Work Ethic. Wats got nabbed ahead of me so I settled on Meeting Houses. I went with the +1 science / 4 followers belief - I'm starting to wonder if this is really worth my time or if Tithe is just better. I converted atheistic Norway & Mali with Missionaries and used Apostles to convert Egypt who did found a religion. Egypt also conquered Fez early on so that was one Scientific City State removed from the pool.
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Nothing special here. Just ran the standard Science Victory things.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
So a mistake I made was leveling up Reyna to get gold district purchases. I would have been better balanced to level up Moksha for faith district purchases, freeing up my gold to purchase buildings. Not sure it would have expedited my victory much, because my struggles were early expansion and bad great people. I had so much GPP flowing in, but because the AI's were bad, I couldn't get either a Great Engineer or Great Scientist to be made available that enhanced Science Victory projects.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
My Great Zimbabwe meant I was rolling in gold via trade routes by the late middle game. Mostly had good relations with the other civs, they joined in when twice I declared and succeeded in emergencies to liberate Wolin from England. The pair of 1 Gold per turn per envoy bonuses were strong.
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Normal age in Classical, Golden running to the end after that
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
I didn't focus on culture, but nonetheless would have won a Cultural Victory a few turns before the Science Victory if I didn't take drastic measures. I sold off all my Great Works (which I was happy to own most of he game to advance myself in the civic tree) just to not get a Culture Victory. Having 4 of 4 dyes on the map was an absurd Tourism boost. I didn't enjoy this. I was confused as to why Barb Camps couldn't advance to City States. Was that because all Scientific City States were already in the game from the onset? I feel things would have played out different if Barb Camps had the opportunity to level up; perhaps my island settlements on the other side of Egypt wouldn't have worked.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Nazca having a surprise Archer when I thought a half dozen slingers/warriors was enough to conquer it was a big suprise.
- Did you enjoy your game?
While I've listed some frustrations, yes. This is the fastest I've ever earned a Science Victory and I think playing this game at a lower difficulty level helped teach me about managing Science Yields and what should go into a Science "speed run". This is my first time achieving a SV before any iceberg melt.

 

[isopaha]

SV T240. Posting this a few days after the game ended, so I forgot a lot of things already. But it was quite a fun game and the key was to explore early to find the sweet city spots on other islands and also to find the scientific CS. Kilwa was very important as well.

 

[Monthar]

One thing about this game that really annoyed me was that barbarian outpost were prevented from evolving into city states. This only happens one of two ways; 1) Starting number of city states is set to 0, 2) On the advanced settings screen deselecting all but the number of city states we start with. So if the game has 12 city states to start with, if you deselect all but 12 of the city states you prevent the barbarian outposts from turning into city states. Please do not prevent barbarian outpost from evolving, or do not choose that game mode in the future.

 

[Soger]

My capital at the end of the game. Culture victory at turn 157, complete map control (no rival cities left in game) at turn 165. Got to play with myself for a few turns while I waited for the science victory.

Overall easy game. I normally play deity no modes and play for fastest win time so this was a decently easy game for me.

On my phone currently so I will post a save file and actual write up later today.

I will say builder scouts are absolutely broken on this map. No ocean travel needed to meet any civ/city state.

 

[Soger]

Science victory turn 172. Score at time of science victory 2521
- 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?
Any domestic victory plays about the same for me in the early game.
1. Focus on getting a religion 2. Maximize culture output. 3. Expand as quickly as possible in the early game. 4. Find all my rivals asap
For a science victory my plan is always to go to war mid game to activate warlords throne and max yields through pillaging.
The biggest changes from my normal plan was: 1. having to research sailing asap to explore the map with builders vs producing scouts. 2. zero competition for wonders (difficulty) giving me a insane amount of envoys (15 if you include the 3 from kilwa) with apadana

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?

1. Builder 2. monument 3. settler (chopped) 4. holy site 5. trader 6. Holy site (second city) 7. settler 8.I forget probably builder

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Here is where I set my research pins.
Techs: Animal husbandry -> Sailing -> Holy sites -> Mining -> Commercial hubs -> Plantations (sorry forget tech names)
Civics: Early empire (diplomat for suz) -> Mysticism (Envoy) -> Theology -> Theocracy
I will adjust as needed to make sure I hit all culture/science boosts possible

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

General bonus to yields was really the only one that mattered. I generally do not focus on civ abilities. I play my game and if the ability helps good if I have to drastically change my strategy to incorporate a civ ability I will ignore it.

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

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

After the ancient era I generally do not build anything I can buy. Production is the worst yield in the game as it has to be used every turn and is the only yield that can provide nothing if your situation/plans change. As such using it only on the Items that require it is important to maximizing successful outcomes.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Desert folklore because work ethic exists. \
Religious colonization to save faith on spreading my religion as I new I was going mass expansion the first 2 eras.
.25 Culture per follower as I was going mass expansion I knew it would generate a decent supply of early culture, which is the most important yield in the game.
I am pretty sure I picked a building. It didn't matter because all of them are worthless/horrible ROI outside of Mosques in religious victories.

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

Government:
Classic Republic (until I build warlords throne for legacy card) -> Autocracy (wonder production) -> Theocracy (Best government in the game) -> Communism (Domestic trade bonus) -> Digital democracy (Maximize yields for end game pictures)

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
order in which I took my titles:
1. Diplomat for early suzerainty which made a early Mail conquest possible. 2. Magnus x2 for mass expansion not slowing down my District population gains 3. Liang as I use a insane amount of builders 4. Pingala x4 culture->great people->Science 5. Moksha x4 to buy my space port 6 pingala space projects
afterwards I filled in pingala/moksha just to stop the game from asking me to use titles every turn although after the title above no governors/title would effect the game in any way.

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

I always try to Declare friends with every civ I meet that I am not going to conquer at that time to make sure I can trade with them if/when I start wars. I will try my best to time out friendships/alliances to end around when I will be looking to conquer them.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?

All golden.

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

Monopoly mode is the most broken game mode in civ, not talking about tourism modifier. The tile improvements are broken strong. So I made sure to make as many as possible.
Barbs mode: made it easier as the barbs are easier to ignore and remove when needed.

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

Zero frustrations. Biggest elation was getting first discovery of 2 city states on a separate island near Mali. That started my war effort much earlier then planned.

- Did you enjoy your game?
yes very much.

 

[leif erikson]

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