6otM164 AAR

[Soger]

I did a second play through of the game avoiding the relics belief and using my initial strategy of rushing theater/writers.

Granted this was my second playing of the map so I had extra knowledge. I will say on my first playing I had exploration almost perfect as so it being a second playing did not matter too much. Also at huge size I average a 50-60 turn discover every civ on Pangaea as I feel I am pretty good at using available information to locate civs.

That said:
71 turn victory.

I will post pictures/save when I get home.

 

[GaidinX]

T184 CV



Great game, the relics were powerful along with sculptures and artifacts. Got Kandy with only 1 wonder discovered and managed to suz and explore the rest of the map. Did a LOT of city-state quests to end up with all of them under my control. The only city I settled not on my continent was NE of Brussels just for Mausoleum and Kilwa. – Chops and engineer charges as it was a later settle and not great on production.



AI - Mostly friendly except needed more space and had very nasty fight with Nubia as they were the only non-friendly neighbor – I thought I was beating their special archer out with my unique swordsman, but targeted wrong city and cap had an encampment adjacent to first capture, slowing down rush and spawning so many archer units. They also managed to get horses JUST as I arrived to raise up city defense last minute. Took a few turns and raised cash to get men-at-arms upgrades while baiting out their troops. Did manage to kill before walls fully came up in cap, but they were trying at the end and luckily their third city was all farms and couldn’t get them before I took it. All peace after that, though Zulu/Arabia met me JUST before it was done and did a denounce cycle.



Religion – Feed the World for huge cities. Zeal to move about quickly, the +2 faith per city, and building with bonus amenity.



Wonders – slowed down game to get industrial zones for engineers to help with wonders.



Trade: routes to all civs very quickly but could not quite get a route to Egypt – would have had a trading post in range but Zulu took Saladin’s cities out before it established. Saladin was left with two cities and one flipped due to pressure from free cities as Zulu failed to hold their gains long.



Districts – did build lots of theatre squares and managed to get all but 2 writers vs AI. Earned all the artists and musicians. Only 3 Classical authors picked up due to war with Nubia, but I still don’t use the projects quickly enough and get carried away simming in lesser cities or I could win much earlier.



Great People – SO many, mostly earned but many bought with gold/faith. Pingala plus Oracle is so powerful. Had all the districts in my cap and with Feed the World and the special neighborhood, it got very big, very quick.



Thanks again for a great game!

Spoiler Victory plus city-state and great works summaries :

 

[Chrumo]

48 CV

Spoiler t49 :

I beelined Kandy, all the natural wonders and all the civs. Outside of getting godly RNG, not much can be improved, its a complete all-in, banking on the fact that Kandy is in the game.

Basically walking your first warrior into Kandy through fog of war and ignoring everything else yields meeting it at about turn 27 (so turn 32 suz), unless it decides to randomly scout you with its warrior (which removes 1-3 turns). The four natural wonders can be reasonably reached in turns 25-35, if you send your scouts immedietely there, without even stopping for goodie huts on the way. Of course you have to wait outside of the wonders themselves, so to not trigger them before suzing Kandy.
Outside of that, you just sit on your captial and wait for the victory screen, all the other tourism doesn't really matter in comparison to even a single relic, but sure, you can build 4 or 5 wonders if that's your thing. Also, fun fact, you can't prevent finding Kilimanjaro, if you do, your borders will expand into it on exactly turn 7.

I much more enjoyed a blind gameplay, but if someone wanted to minmax it, with a reload or two, I guess here it is.

Man I hate relics and everything about them (especially the high roll of getting them in a Tribal Village). Maybe we can just remove Kandy from future GotMs?

 

[DodgeRocket]

I recorded my entire game with the 51 turn victory. Although it’s not the most strategy heavy victory. I plan to edit it to a more watchable form and post it eventually.

It’s Just a Kandy relics rush. With secret societies or Kongo it’s the most basic culture “speed win” strategy.

I would say if you looking to just win this game asap settling is mostly irrelevant. You need 2-3 cities and exploration. Kongo has a huge advantage in they can hold a lot of great works early so relic/writer rushes are incredibly strong. They also pay a discounted price for great writers so even with modest faith output you can buy one before the end of the ancient era.

Without relics belief you could still sub 100 this game with 5 or less cities. That would revolve around getting:

1. 3+ Holy sites with shrines and temples with the culture to buildings belief.
2. The culture to population religion belief.
3. Oracle + Stonehenge (after you found your religion to get holy order at the “reduced cost” Of production vs faith)
4. Liang/Magnus single promotions Pingala down to increased tourism (culture promotion for the second tier)
5. Free builder government plaza building.
6. Save production chops in every city, except capital for chopping out theater square and amphitheaters. Any extra chops use finish theater projects.

Thanks for the feedback. You offer a perfect example of the difference between knowing the game and knowing the game!

 

[Soger]

Thanks for the feedback. You offer a perfect example of the difference between knowing the game and knowing the game!

No problem.
I started recording my games about a year ago and posting them online unedited because I would post end game results and people were just confused or they assumed I was exploiting.

I would try and explain in detail the difference between playing to not lose vs playing to win.

If you strip the game down to just winning it is completely different then how most players approach it.

 

[A. mexicanum]

Played my first attempt "traditionally". Meaning Holy Site --> Theatre squares with ~ 7 cities, but abandoned it around turn 120. All my slots were filled and it believe it would have taken ~20-30 more turns to win.

Then I saw the incredible early win by @Soger and wanted to try to get a sub t50 game. Took me a few attempts even with map knowledge, but had some bad RNG (eastern scout got ambushed and killed by barbs, barbs blocked Stonehenge, so no religion in time, volcano erupted and crippled my capital [no, not mt. kilimanjaro], ...). Even more impressive that you got a turn 51 win on your first attempt blind.
And after some turn 50-60 wins I finally managed to get a win turn 46.
First warrior went straight for Kandy, ignoring the barbs.
Build order: Scout (--> east), warrior (--> clear barb camp in the west, then south to Lake Retba), Monument (for earlier Early Empire/Amani), Scout (--> Eye of the Sahara), Stonehenge
Met Kandy turn 25 --> souzerain on turn 30, got 3 relics in the same turn, only Sahara al Beyda on turn 31 because barbs slowed me down.

I believe 2 or 3 turns quicker should be doable with a little luck.
I "lost" 2 turns finding Kandy because I made a little detour because I still had to meet Dido and did not want to risk missing her. I believe turn 23 is the earliest you can find Kandy.
The second choke point was finding the 6th player (Shaka or Ramses). I met Shaka on turn 31 (he also had the most culture (domestic tourists), so one turn after I souzed Kandy.

I have fun replaying games and trying to win earlier than before, and in general I would say you can learn a lot by replaying the same game several times, since you can see which strategy works best and what actually helps you win instead of "only" building your empire.

(Save is pre win, you will win if you press end turn)

P.S: I can not recommend Sukritact's Tourism Overview Screen enough to both learn about tourism works and keep the overview what you have and what you still need to win in game.

 

[Soger]

Played my first attempt "traditionally". Meaning Holy Site --> Theatre squares with ~ 7 cities, but abandoned it around turn 120. All my slots were filled and it believe it would have taken ~20-30 more turns to win.

Then I saw the incredible early win by @Soger and wanted to try to get a sub t50 game. Took me a few attempts even with map knowledge, but had some bad RNG (eastern scout got ambushed and killed by barbs, barbs blocked Stonehenge, so no religion in time, volcano erupted and crippled my capital [no, not mt. kilimanjaro], ...). Even more impressive that you got a turn 51 win on your first attempt blind.
And after some turn 50-60 wins I finally managed to get a win turn 46.
First warrior went straight for Kandy, ignoring the barbs.
Build order: Scout (--> east), warrior (--> clear barb camp in the west, then south to Lake Retba), Monument (for earlier Early Empire/Amani), Scout (--> Eye of the Sahara), Stonehenge
Met Kandy turn 25 --> souzerain on turn 30, got 3 relics in the same turn, only Sahara al Beyda on turn 31 because barbs slowed me down.

I believe 2 or 3 turns quicker should be doable with a little luck.
I "lost" 2 turns finding Kandy because I made a little detour because I still had to meet Dido and did not want to risk missing her. I believe turn 23 is the earliest you can find Kandy.
The second choke point was finding the 6th player (Shaka or Ramses). I met Shaka on turn 31 (he also had the most culture (domestic tourists), so one turn after I souzed Kandy.

I have fun replaying games and trying to win earlier than before, and in general I would say you can learn a lot by replaying the same game several times, since you can see which strategy works best and what actually helps you win instead of "only" building your empire.

(Save is pre win, you will win if you press end turn)

P.S: I can not recommend Sukritact's Tourism Overview Screen enough to both learn about tourism works and keep the overview what you have and what you still need to win in game.

Just general advice:

Double scout start is almost always the correct call for any speed culture win, unless water map.

Don’t worry about barbarians early unless they are swarming your cities.
A warrior/scout can stand on a tile with defense bonus and defend and kill any early Barb unit unless it’s ranged.
If your looking to end it under 100 it’s infinitely easier to get a couple warriors/scouts and defend improvements.

Finally if your looking at sub 120 even on deity the tourism modifiers provide so little to be irrelevant. War/peace, open/closed borders, following religion, or trade route provide so little of a bonus that you can mostly ignore them. Once the ai starts getting going they matter but for a Kandy rush declare war and pillage

Relics is nice but lady Kongo can sub 100 without relics up to deity Huge Pangaea maps without game modes. That is a holy site x2 -> theaters game.

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 137(520.) culture victory, score 677.

 

[ummd]

T198 CV. Invading Egypt earlier would have cut 20 or so turns. Explored a lot but found Kandy late (only 1 natural wonder left).

 

[isopaha]

T199 CV. Peaceful game, no religion and no relics. How did everybody know that Kandy was in the game? Or you just hoped? Well, I'm too lazy to think of any strategy before the game in any case

 

[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.

 

[Soger]

Completely forgot about this video until the other day.

Never edited it down so it’s just the entire game from start to finish.

I accidently sub 60 Civfanatics game 164

 

[lordofcivs]

Completely forgot about this video until the other day.

Never edited it down so it’s just the entire game from start to finish.

I accidently sub 60 Civfanatics game 164

Awesome! Many many thanks for this video. I learned lots of things of this game with this.