6otM161 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM161 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.

 

[djangoxv]

Victory Date: 1933
Score: 1555
- The first step was to get religion and scout as much as possible, then came the campuses
- Initial builds were scouts, then Holy Site and Stonehenge
- Astrology was initial concern, then Writing & raced to Monarchy as soon as possible
- 15% Wonder building pantheon to get jump on Stonehenge
- Communism was towards the end for Science and spaceship industry
- Science govenor was maxxed out for building spaceship
- Information age was Heroic, but Industrial was Dark - the rest were Normal
- Barbarian camps helped boost initial science rates
- I tried to make as many alliances as possible, and almost won Diplomatic victory - so had to lose a few Council votes
- Yes, quite fun!

 

[Planktonic]

CV, turn 210/211

Well, Mali on a hot, arid, Seven Seas map with Paititi right next door is a pretty nice set-up, thank you very much!

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?
Never played Sundiata before, so figured I would lean into his ability and go for culture victory. The plan was to build sugubas/holy sites as first districts pretty much everywhere, and buy every Great Work I could rather than going for them through Theater Squares. I did build a lot of TS, but generally only after cities reached pop=7. Did not build a single campus, nor any IZ. I was able to buy every single Great Work generated by every civilization right up until turn 201, when they finally stopped selling to me. The game ended at turn 210, so overall I would say this is a pretty effective strategy. Makes me wonder if it can be used for other civs, although nobody else is swimming in both gold and faith like Mali....

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Went for monument first, then holy site, then settler. The combination of discovering Paititi and then first meeting Bologna made for a very quick time to research Astronomy.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Astrology, then Pottery/Writing/Currency

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
The leader ability completely changed the way I played this civ for CV compared to the way I have played pretty much every other civ for CV, so definitely an interesting game. I thought coming into this that his leader ability was weak, but don't think so any more.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
Settled I think 19. Two Nubian cities loyalty flipped to me, 1 Zulu city was taken in a war. The last 5 settled cities to the East were done so purely to secure tiles for National Parks- I built 15 National Parks this game, the most by far in any game I've played.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Holy Sites/Sugubas, then Wonders. Built a lot of Wonders in this game, many more than I would normally attempt in a higher level game, but Mali's production in a Work Ethic game is good enough that it becomes feasible.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Desert Folklore for the pantheon, to couple with Work Ethic as a religious belief, of course. Knew I wouldn't be building campuses and figured I would be rolling in gold anyway, so didn't take my usual Tithe but instead took Cross-Cultural Dialogue for the science boost, which worked pretty well- I was 3rd out of 8 civs for science at game's end despite not having built (nor captured) a single campus.Took cathedral for the space for religious art, which was also helpful, and Holy Orders in case I wanted to generate some Relics (built Mont St Michel), although I never did that as I used all my faith for National Parks and Rock Bands.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Classical Republic to Monarchy to Theocracy. Game ended in Theocracy. Audience chamber and the card that gives extra housing to cities with multiple districts were very helpful.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Moksha, Pingala and Amani were most helpful as usual. With Mali's malus against mines I don't think I chopped hardly anything, so Magnus was not important at all.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Zulu parked 2 warriors and a slinger right by my cap, so I pre-emptively DOWed him in the ancient. Levied troops from Bologna and tried to take his cap but couldn't . He surprise DOWed me twice later in the game- no real damage but was very annoying. Was generally friendly with all other civs ( only 1 or 2 formal friends though).

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Managed to make it to a Golden Classical, which allowed for rapid expansion from Monumentality, then a normal Medieval, then Golden thereafter. Game ended with 1 or 2 turns left in the Industrial.

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Lots of city states means a lot of bonuses to gold, culture, and especially faith generation, so it was very helpful, especially with Kilwa.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Zulu eliminated Bologna and Nubia conquered Anshan, which was annoying although probably didn't matter much in the end. Would have liked to have held Anshan as it would have made my game much stronger on the science side, but didn't have the military to fight Amanitore and also didn't want to risk getting denounced by others and then not be able to buy Great Works. Sorry, Anshan.

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

 

[MaddAddams]

Cultural Victory turn 232. Probably could have been faster, but I didn't feel slow. My exploitation of the AIs was tempered.

- 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 didn't have a great plan initially. I figured I'd build some wonders and leverage my Economic advantage to buy a bunch of Great Works to buff tourism. I planned to be peaceful. Biggest decision point was when I decided to snuff out Nan Modal and Caguana as a means of limiting Cleopatra's Egypt's cultural yields. I wasn't committed to Cultural Victory over Diplo until I got all the choices wrong in World Congress around turn 180. None of my early Rock Bands did well, but I also had a large number of Parks.
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Zulu forced me into some early conflict so they were a lot more military-focused than I had wanted.
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
With a Wonder at hand and a Cultural Victory being likely the better option, I prioritized religion. I also got Sugubas online ASAP.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
I bought a LOT of infrastructure with cash. The Suguba bonus definitely helped as did the extra gold yields on Mines. Markets allowing for two great works led to an early accumulation of Writings. I bought every great work I could with gold as soon as I recognized it was on the market.
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
I had two waves of settlement. My initial wave settled 6 additional cities around my capital. I didn't press immediately for more territory, instead relying on a Hic Sunt Draconis in the Industrial Age for my eastward Desert expansion. 8 mainland cities were settled during this phase and 2 island cities, all at 4 pop.
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Given how aggressive the Zulu acted, I expected to need a strong Military game, and chose Warlord's Throne in my Gov Plaza. Probably would have been better off getting free Workers in new cities. I ended up White Peacing Zulu in the initial conflict, and then he was my best bud. So weird. Instead, my military focused a little more southern, at the city-states of Nan Madol and Caguana. Cleopatra had 6+ Envoy Suz over both and they were doing work for her cultural defense so I razed Nan Madol and captured Caguana (located in the red box of my screenshot). I later acquired Heh from Amanitore and Mendes from Cleopatra due to loyalty issues. I built a *lot* of Wonders. That happens when I play lower than Deity. It might be a crutch but I saw everything open and went for it all. I ended up with: Eiffel Tower, Mausoleum, Great Lighthouse, Statue of Liberty (a hedge in case Diplo opened itself up sooner), Eiffel Tower (great with my parks & Seaside Resorts), Cristo Redentor, Petra, Potala Palace, Mont St Michel & St Basil's Cathedral (not put to great benefit), Hermitage, Casa de Contratacion (empowered Moksha), Estadio do Maracana, Bolshoi Ballet, Big Ben, and Hagia Sofia, all in my five core cities. Oracle was my biggest near-miss.
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Desert Folklore. From turn 1 that was my intention given this map. My Holy Sites were fantastic. I took Work Ethic to pair with this. I grabbed two standbys that are never bad, Tithe and Holy Order. I wanted a better building but since I don't prioritize it when I found a religion, I was ok with Gurdwaras over Meeting Houses or Wats. Deserts being desirable and easy to settle were an advantage.
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Tier 1 didn't matter much. I was on Autocracy when I got my card. I moved to Monarchy ASAP. Given the barb/city state situation, I spent some time in Monarchy using the Influence Point bonus to establish Suzerainities over the "new" city states. Once it came to buying Naturalists and Rock Bands, I swapped to Theocracy. I never left it - I find the tourism negative modifier enough of a hurdle that trying to clean things up while still in Theocracy is the better choice for most Culture games. For policy cards, this was a Frescoes & Scripture game. I had both nearly full stop once they were unlocked.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Early, Pingala and Amani. Starting in the midgame, Moksha being able to Faith-purchase districts and Magnus for chops were both fantastic at getting my colonization rush up to speed.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Relations were mostly good, save immediately after I razed Nan Madol. That led to some denoucements and formal wars with most of the AIs, but not any emergencies. After ten or twelve turns, I sued for peace and got it. Back to open borders and trade routes. I aggressively spread my religion through the Zulu (who didn't have one) and Ramses's Egypt (who did). I never directly targeted Cleo's Egypt's religion. Has I been aiming for a Religious Victory, it would have happened sooner.
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Normal in Classical, then Golden on out after that. Oops. So I went normal in Classical, golden in Medieval, but only hit normal in the Renaissance. That slowed down my expansion (along with the frustratingly resilient barbs) because I couldn't Monumentality Settlers everywhere. Gold and Hic Sunt Draconis helped me regain momentum in the Industrial Golden Age. I misremembered when I wrote this up the first time.
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
The Barbarian Clans turning into City States definitely impacted my play. I discussed above my decision to take out two Cultural city-states. I spent a lot of micromanagement energy ensuring I was completing as many quests as possible each age. Spies were suited up to remove Envoys. I passed on Stamford Raffles, expecting Mansa Musa's Mali to grab it and use it on Ayutthaya, lowering their Culture output as the second-highest culture generator, and that's exactly what happened. Otherwise, I took a lot of generally good great merchants, engineers, and artists.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Nan Madol added 15 to its city defense total right before I attacked it, but a Bombard Corps levied from Lahore proved strong enough to overcome. Edit: I also narrowly missed The Oracle in my capital. Would have been pretty strong.
- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes! Very much. Though micromanaging the city states did start to become tedious.

 

[Monthar]

Culture Victory Turn 179, Score 1306

Peaceful game. Built a few wonders and bought every great work I could. Finished off with several Rock Bands.

 

[isopaha]

CV 255. Quite a typical cultural game where rock bands have to do a huge job to actually get the victory. Perhaps I sent my gold sub-optimally with buying more buildings than great people. Should try another strategy at some point. I really like this civ and especially this (new) leader, but I feel I often lose with it, because it's not that clear what victory type it's aimed for (at least the old leader).

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 185(1240.) culture victory, score 1079.
I placed cities near best tiles, but also at the desert edge to get food bonus whenever possible. I took Religious settlements pantheon quite early, so I built my second city early, near Paititi. Shaka attacked me early, but I defended that city. Tornado and near the end of game desert storm twice damaged my best districts around Government plaza between first two cities.
I bought many great works from the AIs, but later they stopped trading them.

 

[DaddishGambino]

Lost this game. Higher difficulty than I normally play, and I got too aggressive tying to forward settle the Zulu. After losing an early city I quit instead of trying to recover.

But since Mali was super fun with mansa musa I tried again and won cv at T264. I knew the wonder location and where Zulu, nubia, and ramses were, but I settled my 2nd & 3rd cities in same location as my 1st game.

Sugubas in all cities and purchased everyone else's great works to fill them up. Eventually added many theater squares with archeological museums. Probably should have gone art instead to keep purchasing great works, but once I had 1-2 arch I kept going that way for better chances at themeing. Built a few wonders but I focused on CH and HS infrastructure first, so being late to the wonder game plus having 2 Egypt civs means I lost out on many.

I settled the coast tile sw of starting position and desert folklore was already gone in both attempts. Used religious settlements to settle on the NW side of paititi. Still picked work ethic even without desert folklore, trying to offset the civ production penalty.

Zulu declared war very early which I defended successfully, but I didn't respond aggressivity enough to take his cities. Got a couple pillages, but that's it. Maybe bc I wasnt threatening but shaka refused peace for like 100 turns. Very little actual fighting during that time though. Was able to maintain friendships with nearly everyone, even shaka once he finally relaxed.

It felt like the whole world was going for culture. Nobody built a spaceport, only 1 civ spread religion outside their own territory, but nearly all civs had great works and at least 2 sent rock bands to me. Ramses was the strongest contender with lots of wonders and my domestic tourism didn't pass him until around T175ish.

Super fun game, looking forward to the next one.

 

[DaddishGambino]

Lost this game. Higher difficulty than I normally play, and I got too aggressive tying to forward settle the Zulu. After losing an early city I quit instead of trying to recover.

But since Mali was super fun with mansa musa I tried again and won cv at T264. I knew the wonder location and where Zulu, nubia, and ramses were, but I settled my 2nd & 3rd cities in same location as my 1st game.

Sugubas in all cities and purchased everyone else's great works to fill them up. Eventually added many theater squares with archeological museums. Probably should have gone art instead to keep purchasing great works, but once I had 1-2 arch I kept going that way for better chances at themeing. Built a few wonders but I focused on CH and HS infrastructure first, so being late to the wonder game plus having 2 Egypt civs means I lost out on many.

I settled the coast tile sw of starting position and desert folklore was already gone in both attempts. Used religious settlements to settle on the NW side of paititi. Still picked work ethic even without desert folklore, trying to offset the civ production penalty.

Zulu declared war very early which I defended successfully, but I didn't respond aggressivity enough to take his cities. Got a couple pillages, but that's it. Maybe bc I wasnt threatening but shaka refused peace for like 100 turns. Very little actual fighting during that time though. Was able to maintain friendships with nearly everyone, even shaka once he finally relaxed.

It felt like the whole world was going for culture. Nobody built a spaceport, only 1 civ spread religion outside their own territory, but nearly all civs had great works and at least 2 sent rock bands to me. Ramses was the strongest contender with lots of wonders and my domestic tourism didn't pass him until around T175ish.

Super fun game, looking forward to the next one.

Forgot to mention the disaster intensity was great! The 2 desert volcanoes near paititi created beautiful yields, even though I had to build the same iron mine 3+ times. Maybe should've chosen the volcano pantheon when desert was gone.

 

[Andre Miksha]

Diplomatic Victory at
Turn 340 | 1919 AD

Very similar play to djangoxv. Notwithstanding the established VC, I could not ignore the start location and went religion and science. HARD. Spreading Scorpionism to my neighbors over and over again.

Honestly don't remember my early game other than narrowly surviving the barbarian hordes from the north.

Used the oodles of cash to buy TS buildings in the late game. Stayed peaceful for most of the game but the Zulus attacked me late -- much to their chagrin, but pillaging their poor cities was far better in the diplomatic long run rather than conquering his cities.

Ended the game with 16 cities, all of which were settled.

Key wonders were Pella and Taj Mahal so I could stay ahead of the era count in the late game.

Religious Settlements allowed me to expand quickly. Scorpionism had Work Ethic, Holy Order, Mosque, and World Church (to aid the drive toward cultural victory).

Autocracy, Theocracy (for a long time), then a quick jaunt into Democracy, and finally a few turns of Corporate Libertarianism.

Diplomacy trading was necessary given the size of my empire as Amenities ran short periodically, but the masses of gold made it easy.

One Dark Age, then a Heroic, and stayed Golden, Pony Boy.

Strong reliance on Pingala and on Magnus. The former to keep my SCI and CUL up, but Magnus to help spam settlers.

Enjoyable game!

 

[Soger]

Victory turn: 138
Score: 1274

Mali is the original civ I started working towards fastest win time with so I am quite familiar with their best practices approach to any victory really. I felt guilt even playing this game looking at the start screen as I saw such huge potential. I forgot to post this after I finished so don't remember exacts on everything.
Never got to flight or steel in the science tree
Got to cold war the turn after I won so no rock bands
9 national parks
41 great works

Any questions ask.

- 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?
1. Get a religion 2. get commercial hubs asap to lower cost for settler spam. 3. mass settle creating commercial hubs and holy sites everywhere so you have maximum gold/faith to buy everything. 4 build theaters once you can start regularly build great works/writers/artists. 5. Run theater projects in every city one theater is built, Buy buildings.

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

scout, scout, monument, settler, holy site (I assume I forgot to post this until today so a little foggy on it)

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Set que to try to get every boost.
Tech: Holy site -> Mining -> Commercial hub -> animal husbandry -> Kilwa
Civic: Open boarders (early disposition and gold opportunity) -> mysticism -> Government -> Theocracy

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

I could acquire great writing in bulk much sooner which is huge for a culture game. I already run a purchase/trade route heavy style by default, Mali is just the best at it.

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

12 cities all settled. around the strongest wonder in the game.
I never went to war Zulu cost quite a bit of early gold to befriend I think I got friendship with their slinger 2 tiles from my boarder. Had I not blocked its path with my units war would have been declared on me.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Holy sites and commercial hubs were what I produced for the majority of the game. No war means I had minimal military as needed for Barbs.
I bought everything else and spammed projects in most cities.


- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Its Mali and there's desert so I picked work ethic + desert pantheon because it the best possible choice.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Classic republic (got goverment plaza building before wonder spam/chopping) -> Autocracy -> theocracy

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Liang to maximize early builder during the only point where purchasing power is low.
Magnus to chop out every city. Took settler ability as well as Mali has lower populations in my games
Pingala Increased tourism from great works.
Moksha never came into play as I was well onto winning by the time I started getting him. He only got promotions because I debated a religion push end game, that never happened.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
It is always helpful. If you can get friendship you can do whatever you want without fear, and without the expense of a army. I paid Zulu for friend ship early game, Gifted gold per turn and discount luxury sale as they were the only civ that could/would attack. All others I just eventually earned friendship.

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

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
well I earned 20 envoys just from wonders produced in my capital... So yeah barb clans increasing the number of city states was nice.

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

well there was a giant desert with the strongest wonder in the game in it and the civ is able to settle in desert and still have food. That was amazing.
my only frustration was finding Kongo and the fact the best city state was hidden with her. Faith to trade routes if your wondering.

- Did you enjoy your game?

Yes

 

[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.

 

[lakeiron]

Better late than never CV T201
Great game, went for a desert faith based religious type cultural victory. Bought lots of GWs and had many National parks and a truly successful level 4 Rock band...