6otM182 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM182 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 map affect your gameplay?
- 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.

If this is a replay, please indicate 'REPLAY' at the top of your post. If you conduct regular restarts, please indicate 'RELOADS' at the top of your post. More posting helps us all get play better as we understand the methods of others, but want to clearly distinguish between a first run through without reloads and other submissions as it is much harder to recover in game from the mistakes we all make.

 

[rechevian]

CV 296 (bad ik but it was my first culture victory)

Spoiler Answers to questions above: :

Answers for questions above:

1) At the start I planned on eliminating all the competition; so I could gain alot of cities for building attractions and keep the other civs in the small domestic tourist numbers but around 140 or so I realized that wasnt the most efficient. I had already conquered Egypt, the Aztecs, 3 city states and destroyed 2 by accident, so i just started building more wonders. However, the cities I conquered provided the most tourists, so they were essential to winning.
2) My first 7 builds were warriors for conquering the city state right above me and defeating the constant zombies. I tried to capture the settler before it could found a city but I was too late. After that I kept building warriors for an early conquest.
3) I should have prioritized sailing and building settlers to other continents but I focused on warriors and irrigation and pottery to farm the resources on my initial continent.
4) I thought the science debuff would be a major hurdle but it was actually a massive assistance. I could pick the techs by completing a boost and it was like having two separate researches at once! For example: I wanted industrialization, gunpowder, etc, and the boosts for them required building something I already needed, so I received those techs for free way earlier than I could have ever gotten them by researching, and in addition to having two researches being learned at once I was also getting buildings and resources by working toward the boosts. I ended up super far ahead in the science tree, despite having almost no campuses (4/16 and none were complete). This civ is definitely worth playing as for a science vic.
Secondly, I got military tatics for free very early and was able to spend gold to upgrade a spearman. THAT (essentially free) SINGLE PIKEMAN CAPTURED ALL OF EGYPT. It was super early game and I spent about 500 gold on it and took 4 cities and a capital almost single handily.
5) I captured all my cities except for 6 which were built toward end game for resource reasons. I had 16 total cities and 10 were conquered in early game and they were the most beneficial. 3 city states, 1 from aztecs, 6 from egypt. I highly advise settling all your cities on other continents as soon as possible, take the coastal bridge 15 tiles west to the spartan continent (they never really developed it) and set a city on the citrus island and the rest on the spartan continent and two on the egypt/aztec continent. Maybe 1 extra between Auckland and Ngazarguma on the initial continent.
6) The most important buildings I had were WALLS! The zombies are brutal early game but the walls help alot by adding free city ranged attacks and a ton of defense. The second most important buildings are the theater districts and if you can -- the faith buildings for culture from faith. The third and arguably most important builds were the wonders that ended up being the victory. The absolute most essential wonder is the St. Basils Cathedral in the city with the most faith / the founding faith city. It would have been extremely hard to win without it. The Forbidden City gives a ton of culture and a wildcard policy slot. The Colosseum was a major source of tourism too. National parks provide a ton of tourism (all the way north is Mila Tipila which was surrounded by zombies), shopping malls and walls after the conservation civic. Honorable mentions are the terracotta army, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (!!), and I wanted Broadway but didnt get it due to not having a place to place it.
7) Faith progressed really slowly for everyone, I don't think the computer focused ships until late game so there wasn't much travel or fights. It was late game before Sparta met anyone besides Kupe and me. But I took Choral Music, World Church, Holy Order and Stupa. I almost won a faith vic on turn 234
8) Gov went Autocracy, Monarcy, Theocracy, Fascism, Democracy. Fascism was a mistake. COLONIAL TAXES was a game changer, because of archipelago it turbo powered all my cities! There is a pic of my polices below
9) Governors didnt play a huge role in this game as they do in others. Victor and Pingala were the most useful. Victor for loyalty when capturing a city or building one on a new continent. And Pingala provided alot of culture boosts.
10) I had alot of land so I was able to get alot of resources and trading luxury resources made me a ton of money, it also felt like it kept other civs in line and crippled since I had all the amenities. Stragetic resource hoarding was also used to keep civs from getting too powerful. I have a lot to say about strategic resource locations and the starting spot was ideal for them.
11) My first age was a normal age but every one past that was a golden age. Including the first age there were 5 total ages and i won 5 turns before the Industiral age ended.
12) Archipelago was a super interesting loyalty challenge but it made it just as inversely easy to be warmongering, as every time the world came together to 'fight' me, not a single ship or unit was sent to stop me! Even for things like faith crises or other special sessions, no one did anything. That being said, maintaining loyalty early game was difficult and resulted in me having to completely take over a civ.
I also would have headed west for 15 tiles along the costal waters if i had known sparta was there and was underdeveloped. Take military units with you because every island is filled with zombies.
The zombies were also an incredibly fun challenge. They constantly assaulted the computer which kept them very weak and unable to keep up with the player if the player could handle the zombies
COSTAL CITIES; almost every city on the map was a costal city with multiple coastal tiles (except for Egypt, Aztec, and Sparta), so if you build alot of galleys you can take any city you want very quickly by swarming it with galleys. That being said, if you plan on expanding early game you will need land units as Egypt and the Aztecs are landlocked.
13) Resources were luckily very close to my capital. There is essentially only one source of iron in the game, and its middle tile right of the volcano on the starting continent (below the capital). More iron becomes visible late game, but they are on very small islands or in the center of other civs that don't seem to want to mine it. The second best source of iron is 4 tiles west of the mountain on the citrus island between the home continent and the spartan continent. Nzgararguma is built on horses, horses are above the aztecs in wolin and below the aztecs between the two city states. Similarly that last city state has coal and egypt has the rest of the coal. Niter can be found between the two mountains were you spawn and on the right-hand tile between them.

14) I LOVED THIS CHALLENGE!!! It was incredibly unique! And the culture victory was super hard to get with the civ chosen but also somehow always within grasp. I did a ton of trading, which i never really do, and i put so much consideration into my relationships with other civs. I also had to really think about the synergy between my policies and cities, when all I ever really did before was to take gold and district bonuses. I am absolutely going to replay this challenge later and try for a better turn number.
I also really did learn alot both about Civilization 6 and strategy gaming from this challenge.

- Also I almost lost my capital twice to zombies. But fortunately if it is your capital, then zombies can't overrun it. I found that out when a wave of zombies brought my capital down to 0 HP!!! for a couple of turns and then did it again later.

Spoiler Useful Tips I learned: :

Insane early game military strat: (I did it with a single pikeman)
1) Build spearmen. Ideally 3+ before you move onto step two as you cant build anymore after step two
2) Boost military tactics by ending a unit with that spearman
3) Upgrade spearman for about 500 into pikeman
4) Take over every city in the game before they get walls

Ship Type: (I only really had galleys)
Ranged ships are the most useful when expanding your empire because there are countless zombies on every island/continent. Even ones inhabited by the computer. Use them to clear the land and then land the settler.

Coastal Cities:
Almost every city on the map is a costal city, building alot of galleys means you can win a domination vic very quickly. The problem is that all the costal cities are very very far away and surrounded by other cities of the same civ due to the small continents. So if you want to do it, you will need about 4 galleys and 1 ranged ship to take two cities at a time to prevent loyalty problems.

Empire Size:
I had also been under the idea I would that a large empire made the game easier but for this it felt like it might not have been crucial. I would always take the Aztec capital due to the wonders they build in early game, and the massive size it gets to be before it even builds walls. I would also have gone west as soon as I got shipbuilding, building one city on the citrus island, and 1-2 on the spartan continent.
If you can, boost the shipbuilding tech and send settlers out as fast as possible.
You can also reach another two continents if you go up toward the continent above you, east toward mexico city where there is one continent with a weak civ on it and past that is another continent that was never fully discovered or ever used in my game.

Walls and Wonders:
Zombies are brutal early game and walls provide offensive and defensive abilities freeing units up for conquering.
The absolute most essential wonder is the St. Basils Cathedral in the city with the most faith / the founding faith city, couldnt have won without it.
Also: the Forbidden City gives a ton of culture and a wildcard policy slot. The Colosseum was a major source of tourism too. National parks provide a ton of tourism (all the way north is Mila Tipila which was surrounded by zombies). Shopping malls and walls after the conservation civic give culture and tourism. Honorable mentions are also the terracotta army, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (!! was incredibly strong in the capital), and I wanted Broadway but didnt get it due to not having a place to place it.

Zombies as Allies:
Zombies continuously spawn all game long, and if you get strong quickly the zombies will too. But this is actually very advantageous as the zombies will wreck other cities bringing them down to no hp. I used this tactic when fighting egypt, the Aztecs and the mayans. See the pic below with the Mayan capital nearly destroyed and I was able to send a single musketman into it. Watch the map for cities with low HP and then send a single unit or two into them - carefully avoiding the zombies.

FREE SETTLER ON TURN 2:
1) skip the first turn. The city state will move his settler down next to your warrior
2) On turn 2 move your warrior into the settler, for a free settler!

Spoiler Proof :

Spoiler Informal turn-based log: :

I kept an informal turn based log of events that felt very important at the time and i'll post it below

1. take out ngazargamu. took 4 warriors, 2 sabun kibittum and 30 turns
2. explore, capital got overrun multiple times but it never got captured despite being completely beaten
3. turn 75, attack auckland, win with 2 galleries while a warrior, spearman and two sabum kibittum fight off 5 enemies (sabum kibittum dont make it)
4. found egypt
5. learned if you walk a unit through the fountain of youth they get waters of life (+10 healing in all territory)
6. turn 92, egypt levies mogadishu, start attack, super easily taken, 3 attacks in the first turn (two galleries, 1 pikeman, 7/200 hp)
7. turn 101 took egypt capital, lost heavy calvary
8. 111, took egypts second city, abydos, lost an archer. used two archets, heavy calvary, one galley, and a pikeman. (pikeman has been absolutely crucial - got him from spending 240 upgrading a low hp spearman from auckland - almost lost him and was about to sacrifice him). also took a settler from the city
9. 115 take egypts last city (pop 8) with a single galley and pikeman. also the mayans find me with missionary
10. 117 everyone denounces me
11. 118 wolin is about to fall from zombies, so i declare wqr and attack cor the free city with galley but it falls to zombies before i can get it ;n; ;n; attacked too early and brought it down to 1 hp and zomvies finished it
12. 119 everyone declares war on me because of wolin - even though i didnt get it
13. 120 massive zombie wave on original capital
14. 121 golden age
15. 135 attack aztecs only city, lose heavy calvary, and pikeman wins it. used one heavy calvary, one archer, one pikeman with great general
16. 137 everyone has denounced me except for two who declared war awhile ago and we are still in 10 turns after peace
17. 141 circumnavigate
18. 143 lost almost all my naval units to barbarians, the oceans are filled with them. they were almost completely empty at the start, now i cant get away from them
19. 150 two formal wars and start focusing culture and faith
20. 158 taruga city state fell to zombies
21. 163 converted the mayan original faith city to mine, and a special vote to take it out
22. 170 massive zombie wave that lasted for awhile, wiping out units
23. 181 golden age ended and a new one started but between that i bought 1000 faith worth of units and then picked the +2 extra charges for faith units, so i missed out on 8 extra spreads
24. 182 everybody voted for the exact opposite things i voted for just to spite me!
25. 184 civs like me
26. 186 realized i dont have the mahadobhi temple, and its in the mayan capital.... started preparing for war and noticed the capital is being overrun by zombies
27. 196 because of zombies keeping the captial low i walked in with a single musket on thr same turn i declared a holy war. one musket used, a bombard was there but wasnt used except for after when taking on a low zombie
28. 209 spent 2k faith on a great general for the bombard creation and 1.5k gold on a line infantry due to massive zombie wave
29. 234 almost won a faith victory
30. 247 lost 3 citizens in capital bc i built a neighborhood under a volcano that had a megacossal eruption
31. 263 been building wonders and theater districts, but two category 4 hurricanes hit
32. 264 vic in 28 turns and a gentle eruption in the same place
33. 272 natural park all the way north
34. 282 kupe keeps pushing back my vic so now im researching planes

 

[cas]

Diplo Victory T330 - one city. Slow, but worked. Guessed 3-4 resolutions incorrect or I could have finished 30 turns earlier.

Didn't like the start location, so rolled the dice and moved southeast. River/Coast that direction worked ok except for the annoying volcano.

Early exploration was hampered by barb galleys/quads everywhere.

Auckland and Mogadishu were very useful CS for this map. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus + Auckland suzerain combo helped a lot with hammers.

Will play again for one-city culture and try to make use of spy mission 'Zombie Outbreak' as much as possible to keep the AI backwards.

Thanks for the game.

cas

 

[timof]

CV turn 293

I should have watched more zombie movies... This was my first game with zombie mod, and they
truly were a nightmare, as I made big mistakes. Killing them does not solve the problem, and killing
zombies with zombies is a particularly bad idea. Lesson learned.
In no game before did I get attacked like this. city defenses helped a lot, and machine guns, usually
an underwhelming unit, did really shine.
On the minor islands I finally got those outbreaks under control by occupying each and every tile with
some cheap unit (I bought heavy chariots in industrial age for that), and even that did not prevent them
from spawning (see second screen shot - I suppose this is a bug?), but at least they cannot attack if
they share a tile with another unit.
Auckland and Ngazargamu were highly useful city states. Honorable mention goes to Anshan - they
could not find a spot to settle and I decided to grab their settler.

Thanks for this very special experience!

 

[Monthar]

Culture Victory Turn 238 Score 1740 Peaceful game.

 

[0urBall]

First GOTM submission
Turn 347 CV, possibly could have been quicker but I hadn't gotten the Mr Fancypants Zombie related achievement yet so wanted to try for that..
Pretty standard CV with Requilaries and Wonders to boost culture, but fun to do with Babylon and it's leader ability
The real challenge for this game would be to try to find a spot for a National Park tbh (apologies it's that's a spoiler)

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome to Game of the Month!

Thank you for sharing your game.

 

[BirdOfPreu]

CV Turn 207

Howdy, this is my first time playing the right way and posting. Thanks for a fun game!

I settled right away on the river within two tiles of the Fountain of Youth. With the inspiration, I placed a holy site next to the wonder, then tracked down the city state settler quickly. Once captured I moved it down South in hopes of better land and settled it on the river there. I quickly scored first pantheon and took religious settlements for a fast three cities. I started with a largely religious focus with the idea to build up faith for a Monumentality golden age, which was also made easier by an early relic. For my follower belief I took Feed the World as it seemed there wasn't going to be a lot of food, given the lack of rivers. First golden age was easy, given how much time you have on Prince difficulty, and ran constant golden ages the whole game. From there started buying up settlers with faith from my capital after giving Magnus the Provision promotion, settling almost entirely coastal cities after that.

Meanwhile, I focused my efforts on setting up a Babylon Biosphere play, planting my Eurekas to get me there. Pretty quickly got to Industrialization but a general lack of production slowed me on down on the way to producing Ruhr Valley. Meanwhile, I had discovered Gorgo's tasty little continent and decided I wanted it, soon conquering her lone city from her allowing me to settle that continent. However, I made some mistakes in managing growth in that city and it never grew to the levels I needed it. Late in the game I did use it to build the Biosphere but it took a while. This was the only hostile action I took the whole game and the rest of the time I spent spreading across the map and trying to establish trade routes with every civ. While spreading out, I discovered Cardiff, further reinforcing my desire to make a Biosphere play. Once I finally built the wonder, I got a massive tourism boost and won in ~15-20 turns, I think.

I love a Babylon playthrough but I was overly focused on obtaining Eurekas. I should have prioritized culture much more heavily in my first 100 turns, as I was ultimately limited by the time it took me to get to Urbanization and unlock Neighborhoods for the Biosphere. If I was to play this game again I would focus on culture after the initial faith output and probably go a more traditional culture victory route, using Harbor gold to accelerate Great People and culture square buildings. Even if I had focused culture to more effectively line up advancements in that tree with my Eurekas for the Babylon Biosphere, I probably could have cut at least 30 turns off. One surprising frustration I had on the Prince difficulty was how little gold you can get early on from the AI via trading relative to Deity. I think that quirk more than anything made me adapt my strategy to play less gold early on.

All in all, super fun playthrough and I look forward to playing more of these!

 

[leif erikson]

CV Turn 207

Howdy, this is my first time playing the right way and posting. Thanks for a fun game!

Welcome to Game of the Month.

Thank you for sharing your game!

 

[Xtowers]

Turn 284 CV, Score ~2512

Zombies posed a real challenge in the beginning, along with barbarians, but once my technology got out of control they were pretty easy to deal with. The hardest part was shifting away from focusing on technology to growing my culture and tourism.

I managed to grab the free settler to begin with, settled south first, and then with my pantheon I grabbed the next free settler and settled a little further north. I hardly ever get that pantheon so I was excited to have it. I conquered the nearest two city states and then waged some minor wars early on. Eventually I peaced everyone out and focused on expanding and wonder building. Egypt was my main competition, though. Cleo had a pretty good amount of tourism as I was switching over to a culture civ and it took quite a few turns to overcome her. I probably should have just conquered her to be done with it, but we were friends for so long.

Anyways, challenging, but fun!

 

[leif erikson]

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