6otM21 After Action

True @antimony , I guess I am trying to recreate the same science bang in a non GOTM deity environment which is not a normal setup. I definately have 50+ deity wins but circumstances often seem to get in the way of a good culture push.

OK @Lily_Lancer so no overflow tricks, just efficiency

 

Religious Victory on Turn 270 (1795 AD), Score 445.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
14 cities in total. 4 were taken from Gandhi (via Harald), 1 was Kumasi. The rest were spammed into the nooks I had.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I tried beelining Mamluks, but had only limited success with them because the AI had outpaced me with tech. Policy wise I went hard for Theocracy and kept the +Religious Combat Strength and Faith policies to spam Apostles from my Holy Sites.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Gandhi RIP.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Archer rush initially, very successful in wiping out Gandhi and nabbing his cities from Harald. Crossbow and Mamluk army came a cropper to Philip's powerful Conquistadors. After my attempts of a military jihad against Spain, and embarrassingly, Brussels, failed I decided to give up on the military route and focus on a persuasive conversion campaign of religious units instead.

- What was your most useful unit?
Apostles. Military-wise, the early Archer rush was key in getting a solid base of 8 cities together before Turn 100.

- Did you use diplomacy? How?
Not really, since my warmongering against Kumasi and Philip had soured most people against me.

- Were City-States helpful?
I had suzerainty over Jerusalem but I don't think its position was super helpful in spreading my religion. Yerevan was much more useful, and the nearby Cliffs of Dover meant I could pick the promotion that gives +3 conversions (and an extra one from Mosques).

- What was your strategy, spread religion or by the sword?
Conquest ground to a halt against Spanish muskets, and I didn't have any Niter. I couldn't catch up with the AI in tech so had to go hard for Apostle spam.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Ran out of Apostle promotions by the end!

- Did you enjoy the game?
It's 3am and I just finished, so I'd say yes, definitely! Qin and Trajan were well on their way to a Science Victory, and I was converting the second landmass without a single city as a foothold, so that got pretty scrappy! With judicious use of Proselytiser and Theological Debater I managed some pretty good conversion synergies with religious combat against first Philip and Qin, and finally Pericles' Inquisitors.

Peaceful Religious Victory against Inquisitor wielding opponents really helps the final stage of the game stay unpredictable and dynamic (and enjoyable!) - much more than a grinding conquest would have. Religious units high mobility really is more fun to use, and getting a huge swing in favour of your religion is super satisfying.

Thanks for the game, my first Deity win

Spoiler Final Turn screenshot :

 

RV turn 121 - 125AD Score 486

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 2, captured 20

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
writing-bronze working-wheel-iron-stirrups-cartography

theology-reformed church

went low on the civic tree, didn't get feudalism before stirrups - paid full price for upgrades

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
China

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?

6 - slingers to archers that never got upgraded to xbows
2 - warriors to swordsman
6 - chariots to mamluks
2- rams
1 - GG
1 - Chaplain Apostle

- What was your most useful unit?
I love the mamluk + chaplain + GG + ram combo. They can tear through cities at an alarming rate.

- Did you use diplomacy? How?
Trading luxuries for gold

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes - Yervan is super helpful and with papal primacy the yields from having 6 envoys at 2 religious CS are huge

- What was your strategy, spread religion or by the sword?
Sword on my home landmass and word on the other

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
No competition for suz of Yervan

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes. That was a nice setup for a RV. That's my second RV that I've finished; certainly a lot smoother than the 300 turns it took me to win with Spain.

 

Lost on 306 to Rome by way of science.Score 435
How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 8 captured 3 from India.
What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mostly what I had Eurekas for,and military to keep Harald away.
Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Nope.
Warriors,Slingers,and Chariots.Then upgrades.I bought a few arty's with faith near the end.
What was your most useful unit?
Mamluks
Did you use diplomacy? How?
Yep.To trade away those extra luxuries.I was also friends with Quin for a while and Trajan.
Were City-States helpful?
Yeah I had Jerusalem and Yerevan off and on.
What was your strategy, spread religion or by the sword?
I went after Gandhi when his army of religious units came calling.Unfortunately while I was conquering his cities he was converting mine.So I was unable to produce religious units after he converted my capital back to my original pantheon.I ahd no idea that a holy city could be converted away from its religion .
Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The aforementioned conversion.Took three of his cities and lost.In retrospect I should have got a holy site down earlier to have more faith built up and an earlier religion founding.
Did you enjoy the game?
Yes and i can always replay it lol.

 

RV Turn 250.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
11 settled, 0 captured. Probably why it took so long; Gandhi being the only neighbor I figured I had a shot at having my first peaceful Deity Game.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: Eurekas and industrial district
Policies: Theocracy and then Spy related one to prevent the other from winning

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
No.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Was Dowed by Spain once, used theocracy to spam Cavalry

- What was your most useful unit?
Cavalry for Defense and Pillage spain

- Did you use diplomacy? How?
Be friended all civs except Spain and Rome who conquered almost all City State on its continent.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yerevan. Yerevan. Yerevan and spamming apostles

- What was your strategy, spread religion or by the sword?
100% Word

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, first deity RV. First deity peaceful game. Map allowed for nice peaceful expansion, did lear some about city planning

 

Turn 270/271 RV, score 496

- How many cities did you settle or capture? Initially settled 2, took 4 from Gandhi and 3 from Spain. Later on, settled 5 or 6 more.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Theocracy
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history? No one, but took Delhi
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change? Initially, 6 archers and a couple warriors
- What was your most useful unit? Apostle
- Did you use diplomacy? How? Disrupted rocketry since it was getting late
- Were City-States helpful? Yerevan, for desired Apostle promos, and Jerusalem for extra pressure
- What was your strategy, spread religion or by the sword? Slow and painful spread
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? Could not grab Kandy. Also, the win came by surprise, when Rome captured Aachen
- Did you enjoy the game? I did, even though it was very slow

 

Took a bit longer. Was having fun fighting while I amassed 20,000 religion then rained apostles down on a wold ripe for the taking. All hail the Crab lord. I gave everyone crabs

 

One thing I hope will make sense--
It is not "practice" or "sense" that make me focus on a builder--settler route, it is calculation.
In fact I never try the 3 slinger opening. I begin focusing on the builder-- settler route from my very first game. Since when I first logged into the game I calculated values and found definitely the 1st builder and 1st settler being extremely valuable.
The thing is that I calculated the optimal solution before I play, and then it turns out to overperform others, instead of reaching a "sense" from endless meaningless practice . In fact I have real-life focuses (phd in cs) and only play about 2 games a month. After I joined this forum I only play the Gotm games.

 

Turn 207, first game of the month but have a ton of experience on deity

Honestly felt I played a little bad. Got indecisive in the early game between attacking to the west and expanding to the east. Being used to peaceful games I chose expanding, but yeah, attacking obviously is much better. Seems like best strat is to cut a path of domination through the continent and then proselytize the rest of the way while setting up trade routes so your apostles move faster. Late game around turn ~150 I was declared war on and lost two key cities and also was cut off from a path to send apostles. Probably also could have settled a few more places.

Cities settled: ~7
Cities captured: 1
Army: about 5 archers to start, later some marmalukes which did nothing, after losing a city some crossbowmen and field cannons
Navy: just two caravel, mainly just for city state quest
Most useful unit: just spammed apostles
Were city states helpful?: Fortunately was able to stay suzerain of Yerevan for 95% of the game
Strategy spread or sword?: spread, but sword would have been much better. Even after initial archer rush took a city and then became obsolete from walls, should have continued into crossbowmen instead of switching to peaceful
Any surprises: Not really, just losing cities to a sudden conquistador rush was probably a 20-30 turn setback
Did you enjoy game?: Enjoyed first 80 turns or so quite a lot since I'm not used to such a sick abundance of resources, but RV just gets slow after a while

 

Religious victory turn 263 (1203 points:- de Gaulle). Real life and rubbish internet connectivity taking priority but may write a report later:- just wanting to make the deadline at present.