[R&F] 6otM33 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the 6otM33 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 attached your victory save to your post.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
- What was your most useful unit?
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.

Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay). Please refrain from posting videos until the deadline for submission is over.

 

[Chalcedon]

First to finish! Haven´t done anything else since I saw the release tho

Peaceful Scots went to Space in 1808 (turn 275), score 1168.
Just wonder about Kilts worn without gravity... Sorry, has been a long session^^

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?

12. Settled 5 (incl. Cap), 6 from India, overthrew a Zulu town by chance relatively late game (KWAHLOMENDLINI! - always have to think of those litte Sand People from Star Wars whilst reading Zulu city names).

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Nothing special. Focussed on Communism for extra prod and +space race projects policies, on research obv for the space race projects, made some detours to build new units for era boosts.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?

This Mauryan guy.
From ~turn 5 onwards, I knew I had to kill him, otherwise he would have denounced me approx. 100+ times during the game, and I certainly would not have stand that one!

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

Main -in use- army consisted out of 3 Archers, 4 Swords, 1 Ram, 1 Siege Tower, 1 Spear (mainly for quest from Brussels). One absolutely useless Highlander army of course.
After that some Knights into tanks (boost), a built fighter (era boost) and a single bought Ironclad (again, boost)...

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?

Hell, NO!
I mean, I used it, but...
Maybe it is useful converted into an SpecOps in Multiplayer... Nevertheless, love the more love given to Scouts in R&F by Firaxis!

- What was your most useful unit?

For unit-units, the Swords in combo with siege support. In general, I would definetly say GS al-Zahrawi, as without him, taking out Chandragupta wout have been a pain! And early on, there definetly was a GS race with Korea, so I was reaaally glad I got him!

- Was diplomacy useful? How?

I tried a peaceful approach, as I wanted my cities to be exstatic all-game (and as I was going a way too wide approach in another single player with the Bruce yesterday) and did not want the "normal" conquer-them-all-for-science-victory strategy. I know a lot of people will accomplish the victory before turn 275, but for me, this is not fun in a science scenario.
I managed quite a lot of alliances, but internal trade still seemed more sufficient to me, think that they (and the trade routes) would benefit a cultural player waaay more.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?

Definetly yes. Early Brussels, Lisbon and - especially for Scotland - Toronto were really useful, the more with the Kilwa wonder I managed to grab. Still not sure if its bonus affects e.g. the distance of Toronto´s abilty or the "no plunder" rule from Lisbon (anyone know? Maybe it only affects the CSs with a percentage given in their souzerain description?), but Brussels bonus definetly helped me since I grabbed a lot of wonders. Late game, I only cared abot Toronto, ending with ~15 envoys there. Lisbon, Brussels and Hattusa for the 6+ envoys boosts to districts.
Astonishingly, no. For most CSs, I didn´t care about the Souzerain bonus, but another Civ´s Amani with her "I double all your envoys"-bonus really can be a pain in the ***. She easily makes it up for a 28 envoys somewhere late game.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?

As said, I tried the friendly approach. Really helpful were my Spies in siphoning funds late game. Really enjoying Spies after the add on. Also, the Government Plaza is really helpful, I went with Warlord´s Throne, Intelligence Agency and Royal Society.

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

After seeing another civ (obv Korea) making +12 GS points early on, it was clear that almost all the new civs would be involved, which was a surprise. How to deal with it? Making more science obv^^
Chandragupta`s early appearance ante portas was the main surprise, and the only solution was his... "integration" into Scotland. ;-)

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?

New exploit might be using Magnus for space ship chopping. Did´t use it, as I want a "good" city to actually produce it, and I had to research the other techs nevertheless. Kilwa wonder might be exploitable as well, as easy to grab Artemision.
I think they kinda fixed the internal trade routes are better than international ones issue, but mainly for cultural players.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?

I enjoyed the game a lot, thank you again for making these!
Ending up with ~235prod/turn in Sterling with this start was kinda nice.
Also the map/setting was kinda fun!

For the expansion, I love the loyalty system, the governors and the new wonders. As well as the new units and changes to CSs.

I also wonder, what´s better for SV - using Pingala with his +SpaceRace ability, or Magnus with his "all adjacent IZ" ability?

Not related to this game, but in general I liked to do some strange things as invading a new continent, settling a city next to the volcano wonder, dealing with the loyalty pressure and manage to build St. Basil´s Cathedral and the Polar Station wonder there

Another thing is --- I really like the changes to policies as well as the new Casa de Contratacion wonder! Would love to se e.g. a new 6otM with Spain/Science victory, to make really use of the Continents thingy ;-)

YET another thing is - multiplayer. Normally I play Civ6 on multiplayer at CivPlayersLeague, but I haven´t since the release of R&F. I will now, and I think some folks already found new "exploits" for an early horserush or else ;-)

Anyways, this one was really fun! Keep it going!

 

[Everad]

1st game defeated, 2nd game defeated, 3rd game defeated/quit!, 4th game victory turn 353. Obviously, just posting for fun.

Usually play on emperor, but can sometimes do ok on immortal. I got passed the 30 turn mark without being attacked = might just do ok on this game... Turn 60 surprise war by India and Tamar... defeated.

Give it another try, but go tall with only 3 cities, turn 80 Tamar launches a surprise war, lose a city, beg for peace with all my gold. Next turn India does the same, and I lose my capital = game over!

3rd try, Kinda tall n a little wide, pass turn 100, friendly with everybody on my continent, but way behind in science, but working on that. Turn 160 Tamar and India again declare a surprise war, get decimated.... QUIT to desktop, throw mouse at the wall, as this is now a grand total of 5 games I have lost playing Scotland in 5 days!

4th try, massive settler rush with workers chopping everywhere n manage to get 8 cities in a narrow East-West band coast to coast, with encampments strategically placed and walls in every one. Tamar and India do their thing, but I manage to survive! Finally by about turn 200 I am super friendly and starting to get alliances with everyone and my science is starting to snowball... Finally manage a science victory on turn 353.

Overall impression, I won't say the AI is "smarter" but I definitely think its tougher! I even had some problems/ setbacks in my emperor games, which really surprised me!

Lastly, BIG THANKS to 6otM staff for this first R&F game with all the new civs in it!!!

 

[Victoria]

1st game quit after 3 Pachyderms appeared out of the fog and halved my archer force, just being too cocky, nothing new.
Anyway, played again as it was only the first 40 moves but posting for fun, and ended coming out of an industrial dark age into a heroic modern, the colour change was huge.
Just played the whole game in one sitting, very tired zzzz

Turn 213 Victory, Just did not concentrate enough on science.

Spoiler :

Chandra went all in on my first game so I built faster and he went around me and tried to take Kumasi... he still managed ele's, they are tough.
Tamar kept taking Kumasi off me so I had to kill her... then Shaka did the same... but he was tougher... nothing to do with the whimpy Impi who died horribly to my xbows, just positioning.... Also Shakla beat me to Kwila by 1 lousy turn, was about to chop it in ... if you do not build Kwila you are a fool... I mean what a big difference, I just had to get it back.
I build so much rubbish but it was fun and thats what counts
3 spaceports... Probably get away with 2, no real need to push a lot of money or Big Ben. I had plenty of money at the end.
I did not build 2 governors, just no need... Also Pingala 30% with govt buildings is useful if you are tight on culture
Also Retainers is a useful card for Scotland.
All that war and Korea was still my ally at the end.... no emergencies.
Its funny, now I have played a few games loyalty is not scary at all... big red fist flashing saying 11 turns, cannot be bothered moving a governor, just take the next city.
Chandra was not a roll over, the AI may still have issues but compared toi the early daya its lots better
I coiuld not get warlords throne out early enough so went for ancestral hall.
I had to use frigates on Shaka, seems the only way in and helped with science CS.

save added in case anyone wanted to nose around. I expect a lot better although great map and very tough start, helped the second time around knowing what was coming but it was still not easy.
Thanks GOTM staff.

My favouirite pic does not really need spoilers - thats the Salvador Dali Golf Course

 

[LordWeaver]

SV: Turn 273 1804AD; Score: 1214

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?

Settled 2 on early game + capital, captured 3 from India and razed one bad placed city. After the war, settled 3 more with the help from the ancestral hall. One more on late game just to have Cocoa without trades and managed to grab Brussels from Zulu with Loyalty flip.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Archery after seeing how close India was and Writing, for Policies I was going for Political Philosophy - Feudalism - etc.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?

Only Chandragupta.

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

4-5 Archers and 3 Warriors so I could take Chandragupta easily and fast. Was a clean war and after that I just build soldiers for boosts.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?

As I beelined towards Spaceport, once I got Rifling I had already launched Earth Sattelite so... It was only useful for the points towards Golden Age.

- What was your most useful unit?

If you count Magnus as a unit, so it was him. Otherwise, idk I think both my early scouts, I was able to settle safe and strategically enough because I knew where stuff was.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?

It was pretty nice, manage to have everyone on board of the Robert's Happy Train pretty early. I've tryed to fulfill their agendas and make everyone happy and peaceful

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?

Brussels and Kabul early on, then I grabbed Toronto and everything was ok.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?

First I needed to locate some good settle locations and was trying to build Temple of Artemis on the capital (Failed), after I won India's War it was pretty obvious that there was going to be my Production center, so I focused towards Petra on one of the cities he build on desert. For the other cities I just tried to place them close so I could have one Entertainment for each cluster. So after that I just needed to make more GS than Korea and improve my cities. One thing to mention is the Magnus Campaign, I moved him to every city on the empire to do some chops with bonus. Some with wall+100%, some just for the chop.
But basically just make everyone happy and producing.

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

Three surprises in this game, one was a joint war pretty soon after I had wiped India, from Tamar and Shaka. Second was how they both after 10 turns were friendly with me,I just managed to stay off-war for the majority of the game. And the last one, how nice is to listen to this soundtrack progressing towards the ages, Scot's soundtrack is now one of my favorites.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?

I don't think so. Only if Magnus chopping with 100% walls production is a new one.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?

Thanks for the game, it was really fun and relaxing. For the expansion, I'm really enjoying it, did three games already (Tamar, Wilhelmina and Robert) and I enjoyed them a lot. The governor introduce was game changing and the loyalty is still something to learn how to deal. I found the mid game to be lenghter than the vanilla one and it's so much better than the "smash next turn" older one.

Thanks again for the game, looking forward towards the next one.

PS: SS's of those clusters I was talking about and the save are all attached below.

 

[pahakuutti]

SV @ 189T

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Ended up having 21 cities. About half captured (or founded by captured settler) and half self-settled.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Horse rush.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
India and Georgia had to go. If I would had founded Shaka earlier then he would had to join the dustbin of history too. Unfortunately, he had his UU up when I met him and I had only horses.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
7 x Horses + 3 x Archers.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Nope. Just doesn't make any sense to build that useless unit.

- What was your most useful unit?
Magnus. He is way too powerful.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Kumasi was really helpful. Didn't find any alive scientific city-state. Didn't bother to liberate city-states on other land mass (which I should have done).

Seems like the current AI is balanced towards conquering any city-state on any circumstances.
Only 5 city-states stayed alive.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
The early strategy was:
Rush to horses and conquer everyone in sight. And try to go to Dark Era -> Heroic Era (which I succeed).
Althought, going to Dark Era clearly slows you down. But I guess Heroic Era pays it all back with lucrative interest.

Mid-game was just putting infrastructure up. Prioritizing com hubs over science, because of Kumasi and Heroic Era agendas.

And late-game, well, lot of stupid mistakes like
1. Overshot gold and undershot science.
2. Initially, prepared to go with 5 space cities. Later on abandoned it to 3. Now, I think 2 space cities is the way to go.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
War of Liberation seems to be broken:
Waited for ~5 turns for Georgia to capture Brussels.
I was the suzerain of Brussels by the time when Georgia finally managed to conquer her.
But didn't gain the casus belli. Well, maybe I have misunderstood the mechanism or something...


- Fav pics:

Spoiler I think, we have enough workforce to launch this baby... :

Spoiler Yup, don't need any more builders :

Thanks for the game.

 

[Koot Katmandu]

Korea SV Turn 319. I am new to the forum and this was my first immortal game. I expected to lose early but lasted way too long. I will not officially submit the game because I did some manual saves before I read the rules. I am in the habit of saving the game before I quit at the next turn prompt. I guess that is not allowed. I also did reload once when I assigned a spy without using a promotion first. I hate the Spy UI on this game. I often notice the spy promotion after I assign it.


- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
After my first round of exploring and finding Chandragulpa and the Zulu i went for city walls and archers. I wanted to survive and expected and early war. I had an early war, both India and Georgian declared early. The Zulu were allied early and continued to be allied the whole game. They never warred me.

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

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I started with archers and found them great for defense. They were not good offensively against the India elephants. I was unable to take any of India cities early with them. I upgraded to crossbow and was intending to
to take some cities from India when they attack again. LOL but they never attacked again. I guess I found the sweet spot were I was strong enough to keep them form warring me but not strong enough to win. At least
not against Korea. I was well ahead of every other Civ. Korea was doubling me in Science and Production.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
I made a couple and tried to use them to take an India city that rebelled and found them useless. Will never use again. Very weak.

- What was your most useful unit?
I would have to say archer. They helped me survive the early game. I should have tried for some carvery too. The India elephants were too strong in an early war.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I made an early alliance with Zulu and had an economic alliance going the whole game. It helped with gold but it might have hurt with production. I think I would have been better off with internal trade for the extra production. I did not have any good production cities. I might have been able to win if I had built the spaceport faster.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
No the AI takes them too fast. I did liberate and then keep Brussels from Georian during an early war.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
I did not win. I put down about 8 Cities early and just started playing peaceful and building campus, commercial, harbor, industry. I thought, I could take some more cities when India declared war again and that I could use spies to slow down Korea. India never attacked and I never declared. I just got too far behind Korea. I also had bad rolls with spies.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I was only attacked once early. With the aggressive neighbors I was expecting other wars and opportunity for more growth. I did not deal with it. I guess I should have been the aggressor.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
No

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
I enjoyed the game a lot. Even though I lost, I learned a lot too. I think R&F improved the game. I like the governor and loyalty system. I have to learn a lot more about the governors though. I did not use them effectively in
in this game.

 

[Belandrus]

1898 AD, SV Turn 320 and score of 979.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture? 13 cities total. I captured six cities from India and kept Kabul rather than liberate it.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies? I attempted to bee line for Highlanders (new UU wanted to try them ASAP). However, India declared war on me very quickly. Probably because I forward settled him slightly near the one tile lake.

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

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change? 3x archers, 3x warriors but I lost a couple to a surprise elephant. Replaced them with spearmen and then upgraded through the ages. Never did get to effectively use the new Highlander unit. One ship throughout the game was parked at a choke point protecting some of my cities.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful? Did not find the timing of the highlander unit useful. After I defeated India, both Shaka and Tamara declared a joint war but never sent any units.

- What was your most useful unit? I had a level 5 archer that helped a ton. Held onto him for a long time until devious Lautaro caused rebellions in my land with spies. Not sure how he did it but it was a pain in the ass.

- Was diplomacy useful? How? Gengis and I had a research alliance throughout the later stages of the game, and a couple of joint wars on Korea. I thought I might lose the science race to Korea as she led throughout the game but I caught up just in time.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states? Kumasi, NanModal were helpful early. Later on I traded Nan Modal for Hattusa. During the war, Shaka had turned Kumasi which was a good strategy.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC? I was behind in Tech most of the game. I am not really sure what I should be focusing on to streamline a SV. A ton of production in Stirling due to Magnus and surrounding Industrial zones in my
other cities helped me win the space race.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? Lautaro and his devious rebellion starting in my lands caused my space district to be pillaged by tanks.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed? I don't know of any of the exploits, though you guys keep talking about magnus and aproduction chaining. Yet to look into how to manipulate that.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion? I thought the game was a lot of fun. I miss being able to play tall with 4-6 cities like in Civ V. Hoping to try that on the Cree next.

 

[Casualty of war]

Turn 279 SV.

Korea made me sweat. Centuries of Alliances and Friendship dashed to the ground, and then she started turning on the research. While she never really matched my BPT she beelined Flight and Rocketry, getting them much sooner than I did. She had two Spaceports up before I even started building mine. Declared on me a couple of times, forward settled on me on the northern peninsula with Seoul. I think she was cheating on me with Lautaro, him and his Great Works. Kinda broke my heart.

Zulu and I were best buddies for ages, although he stressed the friendship when he decided to whack Geneva. That was a serious setback to my science and it was tempting to joint the Emergency that happened because of the Fall of Geneva. Carving my way through their nation for a 2400 gold prize pool didn't seem worth it because the trade routes going back and forth were so much more valuable.

Tamar kept coming up with envoys out of her ears and messing with my Suzerainity. She was probably upset that I took Tbilisi and built the Statue of Liberty there. And the Taj Mahal. For maximum salt in the wound I finished up my SV in Tbilisi with a Reyna-bought Spaceport and a pricey Robert Goddard. Do his hammers really not overflow? What's the point of them being 3000 then?

I wonder spammed like a fiend. Scotland didn't have much old growth forests left but we had a lot of wonderful buildings! Temple of Artemis, Colosseum, Petra, Forbidden City, Potala Palace, Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Kilwa Kisiwani, Maracana, Statue of Liberty, captured Hanging Gardens. I was greedy and kept Oxford at 1 turn from completion for too long and Genghis swiped it from me! Magnus racked up the frequent flier miles, jetting from place to place, staying long enough for a few chops then on to the next site.

The funniest thing was Tamar being owned by Barbarians from the South. They just came up and stripped the Walls right off of Tbilisi with a Catapult. Those Barbs didn't get dealt with until that part of the map was mine. I Loyalty flipped one of her cities and two of Zulus. I actually conquered Mumbai, had it Loyalty flip on me, flip back and then become my Petra Spaceport city.

This was a more fun than fast game, getting to know the new leaders. I misspoke before; it was a different game that I picked all of the Governors. Magnus is preposterous and it will take a special start or mission to make it so he's not #1 governor in every game.

 

[Eyswein]

SV: T192, 1310 AD, 1634 points

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Total of 25 cities at the end; captured all of India & Georgia; took one from Zulu
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: After getting to Currency and other starting ones, focused on Cartography, then on to Rocketry and Satellites ignoring the bottom half; after Robotics, finally did the 19 or so remaining techs needed
Culture: focus on Political Philosophy, then Exploration, then Guilds & Naval Tradition (for +adj bonuses), then Democracy, then Globalization
Policies: during my Free Inquiry golden ages, focused on commerce/harbor +adj; then focused on culture/science until I got Globalization; then focus on science
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
India and Georgia; took one Zulu city during my single war of liberation and tried to stay at peace with the others; I had two Alliances, but only traded with the Netherlands for a crap ton of gold and some science
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Started 6 slingers and a few warriors; upgraded them; initially only had one heavy chariot and eventually got a total of 3 knights; in the sea started 4 galleys for exploration and eventually added 3 privateers
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
No
- What was your most useful unit?
Does Magnus count? I sent him from city to city for chopping and chopping and chopping.
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Very much so; Alliance with Netherlands yielded a crap ton for my 18 traders
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Yes, eventually Suz of 6 of them at the end yielding +60% science with International Space Agency policy; most of time I was with 4 of them, to include 2 culture CS’s; the 2 culture CS’s + Kilwa Kisiwani Wonder led to a crap ton of extra culture; Zulu attacked Brussels once, but I fended them off
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Initially thought India and I were alone so only had warriors and archers to conquer them.
T41 Found Georgia with scout while I was focused on settler creation.
T52 Golden Age – Free Inquiry; focus on Commerce/Harbor districts instead of expanding military for Georgia. Decide I want to always be in a golden age and also focus on items that will get me there.
T72 Finish off India, military heads toward Georgia and starts war ~T85-T95 (conquer them on T145 as they are annoying trying to take Suz of Nan Model – I built Kilwa Kisiwani on T126, so couldn’t let them
T98 Another Golden Age – Free Inquiry again, so going gang busters on Commerce/Harbors
T138/T184 two more Golden Ages – both Reformer of the Coinage – sadly Free Inquiry was not an option; I was not focused on Campuses after the 2 previous golden ages – saw science plummet and finally got moving on Campuses. Started moving all trade routes to my Ally Netherlands for gold galore and science.
T152-T192 Focused on getting to Rocketry, bought two Space Districts with Reyna, then chopped all space projects with Magnus (2 in first city; 3 in second)
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The missing Foreign Trade bonus since I’d found both continents before settling my capital. Checked forums and realized it is the new normal.
Not really a surprise but didn’t think to use the settler mode to better find CS/AI – definitely a great technique that one shouldn’t forget.
Learning R&F was a constant stream of surprises in general – I’d played about the first 75 turns in a bunch of games to see how the AI differed early, but this is the first time I played one through.
- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
Maybe – the Zulu attacked Brussels while I was Suz; I declared a war of liberation and stopped them from taking it; first thought was to let them take it, then do a rotating war/peace with them for the bonuses for 50% of the remainder of the game; not sure if that would work, but if it does I think it could be considered an exploit; heck, maybe gift them a city then do the same thing would work, but feels like the religious victory exploit
Update: This was actually a protectorate war, but concept of exploit still applies for liberation wars.
- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Loved it!! Interesting change from vanilla!

 

[whacker]

Turn 168 SV, 1329 pts.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Captured 9, settled 14.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Horseback riding for horserush, political philosophy. Nothing special.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Yes, India and Georgia

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
2 warriors, 3 archer, 7 horses+battering ram. 3 knights, 3 musketmen, 3 privateer 1 ironclad for heurekas. Also built a small navy because i wanted to keep geneva and i was thinking about freeing Hattusha.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
No, i did not even build it for era score.

- What was your most useful unit?
Probably the battering ram .

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I made plenty of gold by selling luxes and i had an alliance with the Netherlands for a good part of the game. I tried to conquer my continent before meeting the other civilizations to avoud warmangering penalties. Korea and the Mongols still declared on me because they hated the Netherlands.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Geneva/Kumasi/Nan-Madol - beatuiful. Brussels also helps with chopping wonders, especially now that we got Magnus. Sadly Hattusha got conquered by the Netherlands roughly 5 turns after i met them. I had not propperly prepared to free coastal CS, so my navy arrived too late and i just left Hattusha to Willhelmina. Shaka tried really hard to capture Geneva, but after they got 1 Musket he coul not do it.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Fast rocketry and Democracy+Big Ben, bought Spaceport, chopped the first two projects, got Globalization thanks to culture overflow. As i was suzerain of all CS i then had 2k+ science and could finish really fast. Added a 2. Spacport in the tundra to chop the last projects. 3 consecutive golden ages and high ammenities+scottish bonus also helped.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I did not manage to get harvest pantheon so i had to go with divine spark.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Yes i really liked it. I think the expension is great, but still leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Victoria]

Welcome back @whacker nice game!

 

[guslaet]

SV at turn 329, 1908ad

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 5 cities (only with captured Settlers) and capture more than half the world.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Whatever was boosted and cheapest (and tried to boost all that I could).

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
India, Georgia and Korea. Almost sent the Mapuche as well, but my ship was sent to Mars before I could do that. The Netherlands were dealt with by the Mapuche earlier.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Started with lots of slingers (the archers) to get rid of India (before they could get those elephants; they actually built one. The I would build one unit after one building in cities that had no lack of housing or amenities whenever I was at war. With a cap of six units per type (in order to build 2 armies each in the future). I would not build units while I was not at war (except with the slingers).

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
I did, but did not thing it particularly useful.

- What was your most useful unit?
Two frigates that I manage to get early to level 4 and thus used it to bombard Korean cities. Because Korea was technologically advanced, my ranged ground units would not damage their walls properly and get lots of damage from them. When I got those two frigates I could bombard their cities slowly from a distance.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I think so for it helped to keep the Zulus in control. They just loved me and didn't attack me with their massive army.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
O yes. I do like city-states. I got that wonder (forgot the name) that increase the outputs of allied city-states, so I tried to keep two of each into my power as much as I could. In fact by midgame I was the dominant diplomatic power. Also I conquered I few city-states myself. The idea was to leave just two of each type remaining and allied to me. The most useful I believe was Kabul for the XP bonus. With Oligarchy, this made my army increase in XP really fast.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Initially I tried to build golf courses and entertainment complexes to get the science bonus, building a few science districts here and there. I got a few great scientists. By midgame I started to focus on production. Before I built any Space districts, I would finish all possible districts with production bonuses. In the end, my spaceship parts would cost only 9 turns. Another thing that helped was that Government district building that allowed to use workers to help build city projects.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Not really. Well. It is not clear to me though how the new alliance system works. I was involved in two wars declared by someone at my allies, but then I just had Science and Cultural alliances. Isn't it weird that you would be forced into war because someone attacked your science or disneyland partner?

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
I wonder if there is anything wrong (or changed) with the warmongering system. In these wars I was involved because of my allies, all cities I captured generated no warmongering penalties, except when I decided to keep city-states (instead of liberating them) or captured the last city of a civ (even the capital did not generate any warmongering). Of course this is good to not lose friends like the threatening Zulus. I conquered more than half world for free. I notice something similar in two previous games I played since Rise and Fall. But then I don't know if this would be a forbidden exploit for GotM: what should we do? Declare peace as soon as we have a chance?

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Yes I did. It is probably the third of fourth game I win on Immortal (except on early release dates when even Deity was ridiculously easy). It seems to me that it got I little easier than it was before. I like the Golden/Dark Age system and the Governments seem interesting. I think I need to learn more how to explore the governors though. I tend to leave them in my initial cities and use the war governor (plus an additional one if I'm moving to fast) when expanding through war. I also like a lot the loyalty system. Manage to get a few cities with that.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

SV Turn 288

About par for the course (har har) for me with science on immortal+, but still a fun game. Nice job adding all of the new civs into mix - I actually didn't even pick up on that until the very end. Not much noteworthy strategy here. I didn't declare any wars and kept my empire pretty minimal with 9 or 10 cities settled and I got a few loyalty flips that didn't matter much - unfortunately no ally cities were captured so I never got to make use of the liberation war. I captured one lousy Indian city but never bothered to take them out because of Varu and they had defender of the faith. They declared several surprise wars on me and did a little damage early. I built a lot of wonders - probably too many actually because I forgot to save myself enough resources for chopping space projects so I had to hard build all that stuff. Korea was ahead of me in score and was cranking out the highest science output I've seen from the AI (close to 400) and Mongolia was also hanging in there and further along on space construction with 2 projects completed. There were very few CS around - only Kumasi, Brussels, and Nan Madol. I made good use of Kumasi for Culture, but I had 0 science envoys the entire game which bogged things down a little. I book-ended the game with dark ages

Scotland seems ok but mainly suited for SV - they seem to fall pretty flat o/w. I was swimming in amenities though. Dark age first to heroic seems like it might be an effective strategy that I would potentially want to replicate. I just now realized that I built royal society and never made use of it to speed up the projects, was kind of on auto-pilot at the end.

 

[MetalmindStats]

I achieved a Science Victory on turn 330 (1909 AD), with a final score of 1,037. However, I made the same mistake as Koot Katmandu above by saving manually at the end of my current turn before finishing my game sessions. As far as I understand the rules, this leaves my victory save ineligible for submission.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I went tall this game thanks to a combination of the crowded spawn + lack of good city locations nearby, wanting to keep my cities' amenities high, and no doubt inertia as well. I ultimately had six settled cities, including my capital, and no captured cities.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
My research was pretty much a muddle in the medieval era, before I finally started beelining important techs, beginning with electricity (mainly for power plants) and rocketry. My subsequent technological priorities were economics, satellites, robotics, nanotechnology, and nuclear fusion, in that order.

In the mid game, I cycled through all three second-tier governments in the order of monarchy -> divine right -> merchant republic in order to gain reasonably early access to golf courses. My next major deviation was to class struggle first for communism, followed by nuclear program (to slot in Nobel Prize), and subsequently suffrage, where I switched to democracy and stayed as a democracy for the rest of the game. After meandering somewhat, I finally reached globalization, with the spectacular production and gold boosts from Ecommerce, just a few turns before winning.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Not a single one; the only wars I declared the whole game were due to my alliances and two emergencies I attempted to participate in.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I started with a few warriors and archers and ended with a few mechanized infantries, machine guns, and mechanized infantries plus a few scattered destroyers / battleships and a bomber. My only offensive actions consisted of intermittently pillaging some of my enemies' improvements and districts with two ironclads, a frigate, and a musketman in the mid-game.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
The highlander's only use for me was the 4 era score I gained for upgrading a scout I had fortified in one of my cities.

- What was your most useful unit?
My first trader was probably my most useful unit overall; more detail on my benefits from trade routes in the diplomacy section below. Honorable mention to my various spies, who prevented something like twenty spy operations by other civs against my cities combined while pillaging permanent tech leader Seondeok's two spaceports (which she ultimately never rebuilt).

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
One of the main uses of diplomacy for me was to allow my longstanding economic alliance with Tamar. At my midgame zenith, I reached over 400 GPT within around 50 turns of a nadir where I had briefly fallen as low as 2 GPT. This mainly came from a combination of the economic alliance itself (~20-30 GPT, plus the Wisselbanken policy for food and production boosts from my trade routes), and especially Great Zimbabwe in my fourth city (~60 GPT) combined with the 'Reform the Coinage' golden age dedication (~80-100 GPT). Additionally, my trade deals with the various AIs were responsibly for around 50-100 GPT at most points from the mid-game onwards. I was also allied with Lautaro and (in a pleasant twist) Genghis Khan for most of the game after meeting them, but neither alliance did much for me on their own.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
By the end of the game, Kumasi and Nan Madol granted me ~70 culture per turn combined, but only because of my level 3 economic alliance with Tamar, who ended up as the suzerain of all three remaining city-states (with a whopping 35 envoys in Toronto, which I had six envoys in).

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
My general strategy was to build up my cities' infrastructure (key districts, buildings, improvements, and wonders [Forbidden City, Colosseum, and Ruhr Valley in my capital along with Great Zimbabwe]) while keeping them happy. Once I researched rocketry, I designated my capital as the place I would build my spaceport and launch all my projects. Since I play rather casually and almost strictly peacefully, my science generally proves to be a bottleneck preventing me from a quick victory. In this game in particular, my mere six cities without significant civ-specific science boosts or any scientific city-states past the mid-game meant that my science per turn never even hit 300. In fact, my culture per turn was ultimately higher than my science per turn! On the other hand, production wasn't a problem even with minimal chops - all my infrastructure including a sufficiently promoted Pingala in my capital plus the Robber Barons dark age policy when I slipped into a dark age (digression on ages in the last section) meant that my first few spaceship parts launched in ~9-12 turns each. This left me stuck with long periods of other production in between while I waited to reach nanotechnology and subsequently nuclear fusion. Once I recruited both Carl Sagan and Stephanie Kwolek (by passing on Abdus Salaam), plus Wernher von Braun as a bonus, my capital naturally built the remaining spaceship parts in ~3-4 turns each - and Sagan instantly finished the last part, thus getting me to Mars a few turns earlier.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I had to deal with a few invasions of my core territory, which I endured mostly by chipping at the units with my cities, encampments, and ranged units, then peaceing out. More detrimentally, Wilhelmina conquered Hattusa (the only scientific city-state remaining at that time) about halfway through the game, and my aforementioned raiding force wasn't enough to threaten the city before the ensuing emergency expired.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
I didn't find any true exploits, but Chandragupta and later Seondeok (see one of my attached screenshots) were willing to give me an awful lot of gold per turn for my spare luxuries despite both hating me.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
After I recovered from my medieval-era slump, I really started enjoying the game, especially when I started launching spaceship parts ahead of Seondeok in spite of her substantial technological lead. As that example proves, the AI (while certainly improved) is unfortunately still flawed many patches and an expansion later. Seondeok never did finish building her first spaceport until around thirty turns after my own spaceport was complete, and that combined with my espionage mentioned above gave me the win for a game I should by all rights have lost.

On the plus side, Rise and Fall's new mechanics have certainly added some missing depth and strategy to those mid- and late-game turns where I would formerly just cruise along en route to an inevitable victory. I'll admit I haven't been the best at taking advantage of governors (for example, forgetfully chopping multiple times in cities where Magnus would have arrived in two turns). I was also never able to play around very much with the loyalty system. On the other hand, the ages system was particularly interesting for me because my modern-era dark age was actually a benefit, and the subsequent atomic-era heroic age was a detriment by comparison. Specifically, Robber Barons (+50% gold in cities with a stock exchange and +25% production in cities with a factory, but -2 amenities in all cities) was extremely powerful with my major amenity surplus from various factors including the luxury distribution near the start. In contrast, my subsequent heroic age deprived me of Robber Barons (and ~150 GPT and significant production in my cities) in turn for what amounted to a single eureka. Another positive - my economic alliance with Tamar plus Wisselbanken and (later) Arsenal of Democracy made international trade routes much more useful for me than internal routes.

In closing, I would just like to echo various other posters above me to say thank you for the game! Hopefully I will pay full attention to the rules next time, because this game was certainly fun!

 

[seb_schmitt]

Science Victory in turn 234 (1615 AD), Score of 1752

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
10 settled (3 of them with captured settlers), 17 captured

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: Archery, Writing, Horseback Riding, Masonry (for battering ram), Currency, Celestial Navigation, Machinery (for Kilwa Kisiwani), then the quickest way down to Rocketry
Policies: Political Philosophy (went for Oligarchy, after war for Classical Republic), Mercenaries, Exploration, Nationalism, Suffrage, Reformed Church (for golf courses), Globalization

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
First plan was to go for a horseback rush, but when Chandragupta walked by Roxbourgh with a settler an a half damaged warrior despite my two slingers and a warrior waiting there, I changed plans and went for early war. First Varu showed up when he was nearly finished, so I cheered him goodbye.
Same time, Tamar attacked Brussel which I had already suzerained. I went back to my first plan and payed her a visit with 5 horsemen and a ram, which she did not survive.
Shaka barely didn't make it to the end as well: after taking his capital I made peace with him in order to focus on science victory. But ~15 turns later he declared a joint war on me with Seonduk, although my army was still waiting there. Three captured cities later we agreed to keep peace for the rest of the game. Two more of his cities became unloyal which I gladly took over, so he finished with only two cities left.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Army: built 3 warriors (for later Replaceable Parts Eureka), 3 slingers, 2 additional archers (for varus in case they came up earlier), 5 horsemen, bought later on 2 catapults for Metallic Casting Eureka and 2 war chariots (just before Stirrups), since I was looking for some supportive knights before tackling Shaka.
Navy: built 2 galleys, bought another 2 just before Navigation, bought 4 quadriremes just before suare rigging which came in handy later as battleships against Lautaro

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
No, but golf courses alongside with the Scottish science and production bonus for happy /ecstatic cities were.

- What was your most useful unit?
Magnus by far, early horsemen in combination with battering ram were also very convincing.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Not as much as I would have expected, because the civs from the second big continent made first contact when it was already too late for good bargain trading. In the end I mostly traded luxuries to my disadvantage to keep the brave Scotsmen happy

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Kumasi helped a lot going down the Civics tree, Lisbon made sure that I always had enough money left for a good Scotch

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Since I'm not very experienced at Science Victory, I went for the sure thing which means attacking anyone on my continent plus Shaka as soon as he showed up. Took care of science afterwards which resulted in late victory. Still curious how it is even possible to already win in turn 168 as Whacker did. Kudos to him, will check out his save and try to learn from that.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
First surprise already mentioned (Chandraguptas settler walking by), second was Genghis Khan and Lautaro declaring war on my ally Seondok, which I took as an invitation to take 4 cities from Lautaro and kill a couple of units from Genghis Khan

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
Not that I'm aware of. Magnus is maybe a bit too mighty, 50% bonus on cropping would still leave him strong enough.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
I enjoyed it as much as possible, since it will probably be my last game of the month for a while (first baby is due).
The expansion is even better than expected and it will make sure, that I'll return.

 

[leif erikson]

Good luck becoming a Papa.

Better get some sleep now, lots of

 

[seb_schmitt]

Thanks, good idea.

 

[Khalid]

Science Victory T278, AD1814, score 1344.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Expand peacufully, use Magnus+Liberation war bonus production+great scientist to chop all the projects. Planned to use liberation wars for all city states that I expected would be captured.
Not much of that actually happened, but it took me ages to adapt:
- peace was not an option with Chandragupta near by. But went too late for war, he got Varu and walls. I had still only 2 cities at T60.
- Liberation war does not work on captured city states. No one fulfiled that condition during the whole game
- The scientist were so ridiculously expensive, I only got Stephanie Kwolek for the last project.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
settled 7 (one late from a stolen settler), 11 captured (two late due to loyalty flip). I left India with one city, which then flipped to me.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
archers, warriors, spears for India, then xbows, swords and pikes to finish him. Used highlanders for fun a bit.
Bought a bunch of battleships to deal with the emergencies (see below), which paid back.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Except India, everybody was quite happy with me. Had a Level 2 research alliance with Tamar. There was stil Geneva (suzerian of Shaka, who kept it alive ), Kumasi, Nan Mandol, Toronto, Lisbon and Carthage. At T210 Korea conquered Toronto and I was alone to deal with the emergency. A few turns later, I got a joint DOW from Tamar and Wilhelmina and a betrayal emergency against Tamar. Both I dealt with alone netting 22000 gold.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Emergencies saved my game - first Kumasi emergency against India around T60. I managed to kill his weakend units and free Kumasi. became suzerian and got 1600 gold, which I turned into 3 settlers immediately. This saved my game after the bad start.
Two later emergencies against korea and Tamar were a boost and a setback to Korea (managed moon landing).

Loosing the inspiration for foreign trade, if you discover the second continent before settling the first city. Actually restarted the game at T7 after realising this, so it doesn't count for competition.

Carl Sagan overflow lost. I used him to finish a half-build project and all the overflow was lost. Would finish 5 turns earlier.

Ridiculously high gold costs for the Great scientists. Used spies to get a lot of gold from Shaka and Korea.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
I really liked the game and I like all the new mechanics.

 

[ThomCNTV]

SV Turn 302 1862 d.c (SECOND TRY, in the first attempt I was massacred by India and its damned varus)

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?

06 settled and 7 captured (6 from India, including 2 city states, and 1 stupid free city from Tamar)

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Nothing special

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?


Yes, damn Chandragupta, with great pleasure. Those damn elephants would not leave me alone


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

Some Swords, archer and spears,

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?

No

- What was your most useful unit?

Swords, and after some musketeer to defense


- Was diplomacy useful? How?

No. I tried to use it to keep the Shaka away but it did not help, it attacked me three times. At first I managed to defend, the second he took me a city and I gave up. The third was in the atomic era and it was ridiculous, my mechs destroyed their ridiculous infantry


- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?

Definetly not. Most were captured by AI and the rest were targeted by Tamar


- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?

Nothing special. Destroy India before they destroy me, defend me from Shaka, build many campuses, keep my people happy and enjoy the bonuses of Scotland. I also founded a religion, which helped me with great people and bought units in the late game

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

Shaka

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?

Shaka was insane. He hated me a lot and was very traitorous. His first two attacks were very good. The first was able to defend but the second was giant, including using ships.

I also found the religion of Genghis Khan surprising, he already had 5/7 civilizations under his control. At the end of the game he was almost dominating Tamar and sent several missionaries to my territory, which I had to defend with an inquisition.


- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?

One of the most fun games I've ever played!!!

Genghis was very well with his religion and even worried me in the end.

Korea was very good at science and almost defeated me.

But the most fun was Shaka's aggression. He was with the devil incarnate and wanted my blood at all costs. His first attack was very clever, he took advantage of my army in the north having just conquered India and attacked me very strongly in the south, with many chariots, great generals, great admirals, and two ships. He took me to a city, but my troops arrived in time to defend the next and take back the first. But he wanted my soul, and one era later he attacked again very strongly with musketeers and frigates and took back the city he so wanted. I gave up the damn city, and after a high tribute I got the peace and I got up.

His last attack was ridiculous with infantry, he did not count that I had money to upgrade my musketeers to mechs So it was his turn to pay me high taxes