6otM185 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM184 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.

 

[timof]

CV turn 241

Great map! The starting position didn't look overwhelming, but I could claim 3 natural wonders surrounded
by desert and Nazca was in the game. And of course Johannesburg which is always a nice booster.

I fought two short wars, both against Dido: in the first, I conquered three of her cities with Kongos unique
swordsmen; the second one was purely for gold, to patronize Alfred Nobel. Apart from that I played
peacefully and was on good terms with all other civs.

Dido was pushing hard to spread her religion, so I soon caught Judaism with Tithes founder belief and
actually received some gold every turn from Mvembas leader ability. May not have been the best religion in
the game, but spreading and defending a different religion seemed unrealistic with Mvembas limited supply
of apostles (later in the game, I had one brave debater, kept alive by Moksha's hands, to defend my majority
religion.)

I somehow overlooked the opportunity to use Yerevan to promote more martyrs, so I did not get a meaningful
number of relics; that was clearly a mistake. But Kongos strong bonus towards great people worked reliably,
and with a good supply of faith from Nazca lines and groves I could found a number of national parks and
won a CV in turn 241, with great works and national parks being the main sources of tourism.

Very nice game, thanks!

 

[lakeiron]

CV turn 204

Mvemba is always fun to play, thanks for the great game. The somewhat central location was great battleground for religions. I had at least 4 relics coming in from Yerevan assisted suicide apostles. At some point I had to stop, because there was no more relic slot to fill.
Anyway, the Great Works store was hefty, 98 Great Works by the end. I bought up everything I could from the AI. Lots of themed buildings, although moving great works around can be tedious...

This was a totally peaceful game, I only conquered cities through Culture, 2 from Mali, 1 from the Zulus. Plus Kibangu is now wreaking havoc in Nubia as I settled it some time ago while in Cultural Alliance with her. 2 back to back sets of those alliances were enough that now when she does not want to be immediately friends, I have started to convert 2 of their cities... No time for waiting those out though.

I went with the strategy of beelining Commercial Hubs and Magnus for the juicy internal trade routes and the second district was always Theatre Square. Kibangu I decided to settle for the trade route to Ethiopia as at certain point they were looking to be the one to beat, but interestingly it went around among Arabia, Ethiopia and Mali with Mali emerging as the one to beat in the end.

Interestingly, as you can see in the screenshot I have more tourism than everyone, but the game did not give me the victory screen this turn, only on the next one. So it may be that this is really a turn 205 victory...

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 198(1370.) culture victory, score 1172. I played peacefully, with only one defensive war when Zulu attacked me and lost their army.

 

[Theramoe]

Turn 266 CV.
First time writing in, but wanted to leave a thank you feedback. I never really post, but do play many of the game of the month, and really greatful for the effort this site do to make civ 6 an even better game experience and fun.
Didnt really read the wall of text that was on this leader, and when apostles started popping, i had no idea how i spawned them, but eventually by turn ca 180 i figured it. Note to self important to read leader thing thorough, and all of it, and understand the mechanics..
Religious spread came late to me, guess i would have wanted that really early. In my game the western located civs mostly fighed religious between themselves.
It was so much land, and probably should have made alot more cities, to get more land for natur parks. Zulu and Ethiopia both attacked, and in end Mali, but they didnt pose any real threat.
Thanks again.

 

[hitretz]

CV T175

It’s been a while since I played, but the itch returned after watching the (somewhat underwhelming) Civ7 gameplay reveal.

Early game: Mali forward-settled Jenne in a poor spot and declared war on me early. I went Apadana into Oracle to build up Great People.
Strategy: 12 core cities and a "Tour de France avec Magnus" approach, running the classic Sydney Opera House into rock bands strategy. Ended with 93 Great Works and no research labs, using Communism with internal trade routes to rush the Social Media civic.
Key mistake: My trade route was pillaged to Arabia, and I didn’t establish routes to Egypt/Ethiopia/Nubia in time for rock bands. Should’ve settled the 13th city not only for Great Work slots but also in range for trade routes—lesson learned.

Also, don’t underestimate the value of dams (I did).

Thanks for the game!

 

[Chrumo]

CV 179

Spoiler t179 :

Ah, I remember looking at hitretz scores and being impressed back when I was starting the GotM adventure a couple years ago... It's good to see he is still better than me!

Interesting game, I found no good way of gaining Faith, which was my main setback. Nazca has been razed in my game, but perhaps Preserves would have been a good idea.
I also haven't found Yerevan quickly enough, so no relics shenanigans. Other than that, I had to kill off Dido completely, as the loyality pressure was far too large for me to handle. Peaceful game after that.

No city trading, joint wars, or declaring wars to cancel GPT deals.

Thanks for the game!

 

[hitretz]

Upon reflection of my initial playthrough, I recognized it as a veritable disaster, riddled with inefficiencies and a severe loss of tempo.
Here's my second attempt by turn 105. Every city surpassed a population of 6 and all trade routes active—a good indicator of the correct execution for a commercial district opener. (Zanzibar and Colosseum allows us this)

My opener involved double scout, followed by two settlers and a settler steal from Nubia. Upon reflection Oracle was a mistake, I instead chopped Pyramids and blocked Nubia's tile in competing for it.
As I understand it, CH opener for Kongo lies in establishing the "mega" trade hub in a secondary or tertiary city, not the capital. Pingala must reside in the capital throughout the game, leveraging GP bonus slots to maximum effect.
I cannot stress enough the immense compensation that internal trade routes provide to otherwise sub-par cities.
Hammer focus districts in trade city (Diplo Quarter is actually OP with Kilwa for its second building), every trader except first needs to be gold-purchased, preserving hammers and accelerating infrastructure, which notably boosts tempo.
Roads due to internal trade help facilitating movement for both archaeologists and rock bands (with further enhancement later provided by railroads).

 

[hitretz]

CV T136
Second playthrough

Galileo in time for Computers.
Got lucky with the Cold War from Bolshoi. I was 2 turns late on the Sydney Opera House unexpecting this, but having two Wonders to play at was enough.
Master's Chapel helped with faith for Rock Bands.
So much Culture early I flipped two cities and one CS after it fell and became a free city.
No Leonardo, no useful world congress, very slow religious spread (lost up on 8-10 Apostles), Arc museums not all themed.
Surely the Sub T13X finish is credited to a replay, but T175 vs T136 is staggering. Securing internal trade routes, building the Pyramids, and an early settler steal consistently yield substantial rewards.
I can see this map being repeatable on first play through, or Sub-T140 CV if not able to steal 2 settlers and no ancient era relic.

 

[lakeiron]

Upon reflection of my initial playthrough, I recognized it as a veritable disaster, riddled with inefficiencies and a severe loss of tempo.
Here's my second attempt by turn 105. Every city surpassed a population of 6 and all trade routes active—a good indicator of the correct execution for a commercial district opener. (Zanzibar and Colosseum allows us this)

My opener involved double scout, followed by two settlers and a settler steal from Nubia. Upon reflection Oracle was a mistake, I instead chopped Pyramids and blocked Nubia's tile in competing for it.
As I understand it, CH opener for Kongo lies in establishing the "mega" trade hub in a secondary or tertiary city, not the capital. Pingala must reside in the capital throughout the game, leveraging GP bonus slots to maximum effect.
I cannot stress enough the immense compensation that internal trade routes provide to otherwise sub-par cities.
Hammer focus districts in trade city (Diplo Quarter is actually OP with Kilwa for its second building), every trader except first needs to be gold-purchased, preserving hammers and accelerating infrastructure, which notably boosts tempo.
Roads due to internal trade help facilitating movement for both archaeologists and rock bands (with further enhancement later provided by railroads).

I tried the CH opener this game too, but I did not think to put the mega trade hub to the 2nd city, instead Pingala went to my first city that built Campus. I can see now that it means loss of tempo. I learnt something again

 

[Monthar]

Culture Victory Turn 211 Score 1583

Decent game with one of my least favorite civs.

 

[mad-bax]

Culture victory Turn 202
I really had no clue how to play this Civ. Consequently I didn't use the Religious CS very well. All but Kandy were killed quite early on anyway.
I went a pretty standard Commercial hub and Magnus opening. Oracle and Pingala in city 2.
Some similarities in my game to others... Zulu's declared war with 3 weak units - which I killed and then milked them to a wasteland. Also I didnt have trade route range to get trade routes to everyone - which was poor.
I probably settled two or three cities too few. I was struggling to find slots for works of art for the last 20 turns. Like others, I only built 2 campuses and 2 unis.
Main loss of tempo I think was not generating enough culture. I was too slow through the civic tree. That, and not having enough faith to buy enough RBs. Mali generated a lot of culture and I thought I might need to manufacture a war. I wish I had now. I wasted a lot of production on stuff that didn't advance the victory condition. I should've just built some units and taken a few cities from Mali. Someon else did that. I think it was a good play.

Disappointed I wasn't able to duck under 200, but it's my first proper game in a couple of years.
Really enjoyed it.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice to see you back and playing!
Hope you've been well old friend!

 

[mad-bax]

Hi Leif. "Old" is accurate.

OT Sorry: Since I joined this community I've had twins (my wife did most of the work), emigrated to Australia, returned to the UK and the kids are now both through university and working, still in Australia. Unfortunately I'm also still working, but I am starting to get a bit more free time to play Civ. I'm very rusty though.

I'm amazed to see you still throwing punches. You do an amazing job. Thanks for saying hi.

 

[leif erikson]

Glad to hear it has gone well. Stay well.

 

[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. Any results will include games above this post.

 

[nufro]

T 188 CV
I know it's closed, but nothing else is going on, so I just kept playing. I had to go to war with Cleo and Ethiopia at the end as their culture started exploding..

Spoiler :

 

[enKage]

I just noticed Kongo and I loved Mvemba, so went for a game even though submission closed. Failed early game to barbs, so many swords and Xbows destroying everything (I hate those camps spawning exactly on border), so any fast culture was basically impossible (very very late first theatre.
So I went diplomatic, 2 disaster emergencies won, lost maybe one voting on great people generation, skipped Potala, Diplo victory t222