[R&F] 6otM33 After Action

[Fivethumbs]

t237 Science win

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
After conquering most of India and Georgia, switched to peaceful mode (at around t130). Just to check how it works out. So ~20 cities in total.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
This time did not push science "all out". Built quite a lot of Commercial and Industrial districts. With couple of Theater districts got Globalization before finishing all the techs. +10% for suzerain and huge trade routes was super good so, next time will push for culture much harder.
Got Democracy semi-early to have better projects, but it did not work out very well, as it turns out Democracy has changed Earning all the great scientists apparently is not feasible anymore.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
India survived and even expanded to 4 cities later in the game. Georgia's last two villages lost loyalty eventually, so Georgia went to the dustbin (technically) itself.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Nothing beyond Knights. Some random upgrades for eureka here or there. Navy consisted of swimming horses.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
No

- What was your most useful unit?
Most enjoyable - Spies. Kept Machiavelism the whole time. First spy stole ~5-6 good eurekas from Korea at the rate of 4 turns per steal. Korea ended game with smoking spaceports and empty industrial zones.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Found Shaka pretty late (~t140 maybe), made science alliance, and then sent most of the trade routes to him. In the end it was something like +7 production / +50 gold / some good food, culture per single trade route. With ~22 trade routes, it was impactful.
Any other diplomacy was insignificant.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Kept Suzerain for Kumasi traderoutes (this way got majority of culture). Brussels saved some turns from GreatZimbabwe, Oxford, Bigben, RhurValley. Lisbon - standard money. Found Geneva really late, and never suzerained.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
This time tried to build more well-rounded Civ - with lots of production, cash.
Found out I can buy Districts with a Governor, so got 3 Spaceports with cash (two in mega cities, third one - in the woods). Research was too slow though - two spaceports were able to hard-build all the projects. Last project chopped with Magnus in the "woods" city.
Did not reach any Space-victory great scientists. Got plenty of Merchants, Engineers. Stupidly lost several good ones (engineer for factories) by clicking next turn too fast.

Got Magnus on ~t130 maybe, and built Government district in some 4-pop ****hole city next to the DeadSea at around ~t150. Turned out both are pretty good, so next time will know better

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
With all those Golf fields, it was possible to have quite many cities Ecstatic in the end (though majority of the game it was just "Happy"), also those cities grew big (I believe capital was 20 pop) - previously it capped usually at 13-15 and it felt "good enough".
Whole game in R&F was full of small surprises, so just enjoyed it and went with it. Its good to find out space for improvement for the next times.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
Nothing that I'm aware of. Wall-chopped modestly, but without Magnus.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Enjoyable as always. One can build wonders in R&F again, I guess.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Defeated

OK. Chandragoupta is officially the new Shaka instead of Shaka, except that you had a bit more time to destroy Civ5 Shaka before he crushed you and you could actually turn him into a loyal ally if you weren't above giving him some "tribute". Varu are quite unstoppable that early and thanks to his agenda, there's no way you'll turn Chandragoupta into a friend if he's your neighbor.

I tried this map twice.

First game i wanted to play Robert as Robert and used his agenda as a guide so not attacking my neighbors unless they had wronged me first. I was pretty confident i would end up at wat with Mauria however, and worried of his UU so i prepared a bigger army than i usually do that early even when going on the offense. Started with 3 slingers to upgrade into archers, then made 3 warriors (in addition to my starting warrior) and an additional archer while settling only one city and preparing for an expansion phase when i had Ancestral Hall. I went through the civics tree quickly thanks to the cultural CS and planted 5 more cities after Ancestral Hall. That building really help you expand fast thanks to really quick settlers when combined with Colonisation and Magnus and the free workers help those cities get started. I had researched The Wheel at that point and was producing 4 Chariots when Chandragoupta and Tamar who had full green diplomacy with me declared a joint war. Looks like the AIs once again put way too much value into joint war and diplomacy is similarly useless as it was when Civ6 was first released. Anyway Tamar's "invasion" was a joke and easily repelled by my first Chariot and an archer but then an army of Varu cam from the north and rolled over my ancient era army like it was papercraft.

I tried again and decided this time i wouldn't let Mauria develop and get his UU. I captured a worker early, rushed archery while producing a couple more warriors to take his closest city and even liberate the military CS he had conquered even thought he was already at war with me but then i had troubles moving to his capital. Not sure whether the military AI has been improved or it's just a side effect of Archery being on the way to his UU but he had archers ready much faster than i'm used to and he actually used them the turn they were produced. This was enough to delay my invasion until he had his Varu. The first one almost killed the full health warrior opening the march (thanks for Oligarchy's +4 str or he would probably have been dead) and was dispatched by the rest of my army. Then i saw 2 more of those beasts coming for me and gave up!

Not sure what can be done about a 40 strength (but effectively 45 since they reduce enemy str by 5) that early in the game. Gandi was OK because he wasn't agressive and never really massed those even on the defense but when this guy is your neighbor it looks like you need to kill him before T40 even thought he'll already have Archers when you come for him or simply die.

Maybe i could finally win on the 3rd or 4th attempt but i don't like playing the same map that many times in a row so i'll wait for the next R&F GotM, hopefully featuring the Cree since they came second in the poll (unless we get "Granny")

 

[Victoria]

I tried this map twice.

Yeah I was killed the first time so took more archers on my second attempt. Those ele's are rough, I had three come out of the fog in my first game. I wonder if because there is 2 leaders there is more chance India is in the game. Kudos for the post.

 

[whacker]

Chandragoupta and Tamar who had full green diplomacy with me

You can instantly befriend "green" AIs if you want avoid being attacked. If you have befriended someone like Chandragupta he is very likely to give you a nice amount of gold to joint war somebody else, try to use this if he is really close and you cant handle him yet.

Also, archers can not defeat Varus. Better go for horserush (if you are not scythia or mongolia they will still have a hard time, but on immortal you can kill him before he has more than 1-2 varus) or wait for knights.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

You can instantly befriend "green" AIs if you want avoid being attacked. If you have befriended someone like Chandragupta he is very likely to give you a nice amount of gold to joint war somebody else, try to use this if he is really close and you cant handle him yet.

Also, archers can not defeat Varus. Better go for horserush (if you are not scythia or mongolia they will still have a hard time, but on immortal you can kill him before he has more than 1-2 varus) or wait for knights.

Chandragupta wasn't green. He was my neighbor so he hated me from the turn he saw me, he's almost hard-coded to hate his neighbors so there's no way you can befriend him when he's a threat. It was Tamar who was green and yet went at war for no reason when Chandragupta (obviously) asked her. She didn't even try to actually invade me and had no army to do it in the first place. AIs shouldn't get into a joint war if they weren't planning to go to war in the first place or at least had enough reason to hate the target. She wasn't even a threat either, i just hate when AIs make such absurd moves.

Horse-rushing takes a bit more time than getting Archers, especially since it require building an encampment unless you have 2 horses so he'll have several Varus already since they come at the same tech (and he'll have the tech before you at that level) but i'll try this if i'm ever unlucky enough to be next to him. Waiting for Knights isn't a solution as you have to survive the Varus attack first without any unit capable of defeating them!

That being said, Archers are perfectly capable of killing an isolated Varu, or at least weaken it enough that a warrior can finish it (ranged attacks don't suffer the -5 str). The issue is when you get several Varus coming at you at the same time which happened to me during both attempts, even when i tried to kill him as quickly as possible. The Archers he got before the Varus weren't enough to stop me, but they were enough to slow my attack until he had his Varus and he quickly got several of those.

 

[eshwayri]

I

Defeated
OK. Chandragoupta is officially the new Shaka instead of Shaka, except that you had a bit more time to destroy Civ5 Shaka before he crushed you and you could actually turn him into a loyal ally if you weren't above giving him some "tribute". Varu are quite unstoppable that early and thanks to his agenda, there's no way you'll turn Chandragoupta into a friend if he's your neighbor.
I tried this map twice.
Maybe i could finally win on the 3rd or 4th attempt but i don't like playing the same map that many times in a row so i'll wait for the next R&F GotM, hopefully featuring the Cree since they came second in the poll (unless we get "Granny")

I tried to play it peacefully and was annihilated by Chandra Gupta as soon as he got elephants. He forward settles on my border so conflict is inevitable.
I tried to play it with a fast initial sneak attack, but between the three cities he settles and capturing Kabul, he can out-produce me in units all the time. The best I could do was capture a city before the elephants came for me.

I tried it 10 more times and found two combinations (possibly a 3rd I didn't try) that work pretty well. The initial moves are the same. Move settler to the east (4?) / south-east (1) and settle on the hill immediately south of the small lake tile. Why there? Because of 3 huge reasons:

(1) This location is outside Chabndra Gupta's "too close" ideology based on where he usually settles his initial cities.
(2) You will meet Kabul first and get it's bonus. You also need to defend Kabul or the game is over, so you want to be close.
(3) Your 2nd city can be on the west coast and have access to the 2 x Iron resources you will really need to keep everyone else at bay. By being close loyalty won't be an issue and you can get it fast.

While your settler is moving into place, use the warrior to go north-east (cross river) then north-west to discover the cultural city state (name escapes me), and pop the goodie hut on the way back (better yield on the way back). Doing it this way gives you an envoy (and bonus) to each of Kabul (from settler) and the cultural city state. The culture greatly accelerates civics advancements which you will need. Hard research Craftsmanship to use it's +50% towards units; switch to it immediately when it arrives. Hard research Archery when you found the city as you will need it very soon. First unit to produce in the city is a Warrior. Switch to slingers and let it continue into archers until the Chandra Gupta issue is resolved.

When your initial Warrior is done popping the goodie hut, you will want to take him to the jungle tile just North-West (and out-side) Kabul's territory. Fortify him there. With the 2nd warrior, which should be done soon after your initial warrior is in place, move him into the jungle tile south-east of your first warrior inside Kabul's territory. From here on out there are two ways this can unfold; it all depends on whether Chandra Gupta settled close to Kabul or not. 9 out of 10 times he did. In that case, wait for him to declare war on Kabul and then declare war on him. Keep your warriors fortified at first. He will attack and the fortification bonus will do nasty things to him. At the same time Kabul will be creating units and also going after him. Your city should be producing its first slinger about now; move it up. At some point you will need to get the warriors to go after Chandra Gupta's now injured warriors. Fight the battle, moving slinger after slinger (then archer up). At some point you and Kabul will overwhelm him and he will start retreating. Follow him. In my case I had 4 then 5 archers and my two warriors. You may get "help" from the barbarians who like to invade him around the same time. Play your cards right and you can knock him out. If you aren't getting help from the barbarians, you can probably make peace with Chandra Gupta. As long as he doesn't get Kabul he will remain far enough from you that he won't keep going to war. Once you get the iron, he won't bother you at all. If Chandra Gupta settled far away from Kabul (Mumbai) the other way I Played it was to wait for Chandra Gupta to greatly weaken Kabul then I declared war on them and took Kabul for myself. My warriors were just where they needed to be for a snipe. Having played both games, I prefer to keep Kabul around. He is a really good ally to keep around. One other thing I will note, if you don't knock out Chandra Gupta he will eventually go after the cultural city state and that will be bad for you as you will need to make up the difference. It is better to neutralize the north and keep both your allies, then you can better defend the south. Work your way down the eastern coast and try to get a city south of Brussels and within range of the Dead Sea. You can both make it a choke-point for Shaka (he has to cross the land bridge) and there is niter in that area.

Anyway, this was the best military/strategic way of taking control. The rest is pushing science and building campuses left and right.

 

[Casualty of war]

This was a tough one. I came within a whisker of losing my second city to Chandragupta's pre-Varu Warrior/Archer attack, which would have probably doomed me. I had to suicide into his last Melee unit and rebuild my army while he was peppering the city with arrows.

There was a decision point where Chandragupta could have attacked me even earlier in the game but the Cultural City-State looked like an easier target to him. Then Barbs a plenty attacked his army in the field while my Edinburgh Warrior munched popcorn and watched the slaughter from inside the city.

 

[isopaha]

Turn 361 SV, probably the slowest time ever for me. OK it was my first game in the expansion so most of the new mechanics were quite surprising to me.

Some things I learned have changed:
1) AI is more of a threat military wise for the whole game even if your army is quite up to speed. In early game I lost my 4th city because first India DoWed me, then when I was about to fight him back, Georgia backstabbed me and managed to snag a city. However, I was the only one to join the quest to take it back and I succeeded which netted me some extra gold. Later Shaka declared be several times, but was fought back with quite an effort. In the very late game the AI's realized I was about to win and India invaded my lands with 10+ modern armors, most of them armies. They were hard to defeat, but did not threaten my cities because he had no support.
2) At this point they several times used spies to disable my spaceport, which was new and told me that they are at least trying to win the game. Though Korea was unexpectedly slow to finish the game with her tech lead.
3) The game is much slower to run on my computer, which can cause some minor problems in the late game.

Barbs were not an issue for the whole game. I got Mombaza wonder, but no other wonders despite having engineers ready to instabuild it - AIs were just too advanced tech-wise and stole them quickly.

I ended up conquering most of Georgia quite easily in mid-game, but India would have been much tougher so I did not try that.

 

[wutface]

Defeated

Spoiler vs india :

go for agoge asap, pick urban planing and spam archers+some warriors
either DoW india instantly when u meet him (and clear his trash around your city with archers) or backstab him while he tries to capture city state (better)
advance on the right (kabul) side of the river there will be hordes of barbs on the left side let them soften-up india
just don't peace out leaving him with one city to take all his gold
finish him off or loyalty-nonsense will be major pain

dayum already explained by

You will meet Kabul first

 

[i_imperator]

Spoiler vs india :

View attachment 490045
go for agoge asap, pick urban planing and spam archers+some warriors
either DoW india instantly when u meet him (and clear his trash around your city with archers) or backstab him while he tries to capture city state (better)
advance on the right (kabul) side of the river there will be hordes of barbs on the left side let them soften-up india
just don't peace out leaving him with one city to take all his gold
finish him off or loyalty-nonsense will be major pain

dayum already explained by

I tried this but I had trouble with the barbs and with era score. India kept buying archers too which slowed me down. Didn't wipe him out until T41

 

[Formersd]

SV at turn 329, 1908ad, score 1419

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 8 cities, captured 12 (I returned one as a gesture of goodwill in a late war).

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Science and amenity policies. I focused on keeping the core cities happy to capitalize on the Scottish Enlightenment. Pushed for science and industrial research in the end went straight to the SV techs.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
India, fought 4-5 wars against him with the final war going very badly for him. Fought a few late wars as Georgia, Netherlands and Mongolia all picked fights.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Key army was Knights and Crossbows, that is how I finally turned the tide against India. After that it was just defensive.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Used him to snipe some units at sea, but not that useful.

- What was your most useful unit?
Knight corps.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Absolutely, had a alliance deals with Georgia, Zulus and Mapuche for most of the game. By the end, only the Mapuche were still with me.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Not really.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Survival early was touch and go. I allied with the Zulus and Georgia so I could focus on India. Once he was dealt with, I focused on science, production and happiness in my core cities and things just took off at that point.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
India on the doorstep was the difficult challenge

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
No, though there is a bug with alliances. Even though Georgia ended my alliance and denounced me, she was still able to have troops wandering around my territory.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Yes, very challenging but fun to come back from what I thought was a loss. Really like R&F. The loyalty mechanism adds a lot more planning on war and keeping the conquered territory under wraps.

 

[RickSL]

I just managed to survive an early elephant attack from Chandragupta, I thought I was toast but managed to fight him off while chopping a decent army. As Chandragupta was too difficult, to recoup my losses I headed south and stole Georgia’s capital with TOA included. Managed to pull off a turn 319 science victory, even though I thought I was too far behind.

 

[Half Nelson]

Science victory turn 260 (1254 points).
Very enjoyable first game of R&F, the new features certainly add flavour. I ended up conquering both India and Georgia (leaving the latter one city) which made me generally unpopular, so I didn’t get a chance to try out alliances. I finished with 21 cities. The tier 2 and 3 Government Centre buildings I used (Intelligence Agency, Royal Society) were very strong:- espionage is much more interesting now and the use of worker charges to complete space projects is a neat addition. It took me a while to build up science output:- the new requirements for +50% science bonus make city infrastructure planning much more interesting. This map did not offer much in the way of natural science adjacency boni in my empire (I had to combine different types of adjacency bonus to even get 2 cities up to +3) and I didn’t find a worthwhile spot for a polar research station until very late so didn’t bother. I managed 670 science / turn at peak. Governers are a great addition.

The combat AI is somewhat improved, notably at sea where I actually lost a couple of ships.

Scotland was a nice civ to play. I spent much effort keeping my people happy for the production and GP boni. Golf courses helped here. I never built a highlander, having lost my scouts in warfare. I was never able to trigger the Liberation War option despite having a couple of allied CS captured by AI (maybe CS don’t count here?). I did join an emergency against Shaka after he captured Brussels and, being the only civ to accept the challenge, earned a tidy cash bonus to buy some stadia for extra happiness.

Surprises:-

I started and finished in Dark Ages! (contributing to 7 achievements earned this game)

The AI neutralized one of my governers

There only seemed to be one emergency in the whole game

My neighbour Shaka was surprisingly peaceful until late game. Only Mongolia shows much aggressive play, trimming Netherlands and capturing several CS.

PS:- I had a crash at beginning of turn 153 (edge scroll error which subsequently froze).

 

[i_imperator]

Not submitting this (I'm past the submission date anyway) but it was a failure, Korea was running away with the game and Shaka had declared on me. I stopped my horse-rush with India and couldn't get globalization in time. Korea stole big ben from me too.

I didn't get feudalism until turn 112 either so that may have been a big problem, went for the Monarchy walls chop for the districts, managed to snag Mids, Petra, Coll, Great Zim and Taj.

This is my first immortal game on civ 6 would love to hear some tips.

 

[nufro]

T306 SV

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
3 or 4 initially, grabbing horses and iron
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Military + science
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Almost everyone, due to the slow timeline
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Initially, archers and horses, also built navy once the landmass ended
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Built a few, but could not upgrade, eventually lost all of them
- What was your most useful unit?
Korolev
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Stole a bunch of stuff from Korea, before wiping it out
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Helped a lot with culture
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Business as usual, domination first
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Too much space, could not move fast enough.
- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
Not really
- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
The ages are definitely enjoyable, governors have some merit as well. Good, enjoyable map. I wish I could do it faster.

Thanks!

 

[MrRadar]

T252 SV, score 1794

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
In the end I had 35 or 36 cities, captured 5 from India and razed one due to bad placement, 5 from Georgia, 1 from Zulu. Got carried away a little Oh, and flipped one Korean city, which she helpfully founded for me on my landmass, near my cities.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Met Chandra on T7, gulped, and prioritized archery and horses. Then sciences.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Yes, Chandra, because how else? That's a new knee jerk reaction. I was in a lot of hurry to finish him off before he gets his jumbos. Was successful. Then Tamar, because I now had quite an army and had to find something to do for them. After I finished with Tamar, I left Shaka in peace, as I had too much land and contacts began with the other continent, so I wanted no more WM and was seeking some good trades. Shaka did not leave me in peace though, and had to pay some nice war reparations. Basically he financed the purchase of two of my factories.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
After I lost couple of slingers and a warrior to triggered barbs, I was operating against Chandra and later Tamar with six warriors, five archers, accidentally two rams and eventually 5 horses. Maybe I overbuilt troops a little, but I was fearing I was about to face Indian elephants. Afterwards just upgraded them. Also build the usual two galleys, three privateers, couple of frigates to defend my shores from Shaka's harassment.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Upgraded couple of scouts and used mostly for military parades to raise peoples' spirits

- What was your most useful unit?
Horses in combination with rams.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Traded for some nice money, somewhat underused alliances, as now they also mean a defensive pact, so I was trying to figure out which partner would be least objectionable to the others. That wasn't worth the time, as I ended up allying late with Wilhelmina, who was hated by anyone else anyway, and anyway Mongolia and Mapuche declared on me a couple of times, using that silly joint war. Them being out of reach, that only meant ten turns of interrupted supplies of luxuries and maybe some loss from CS bonus or two.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Yes, Brussels especially for stealing a few wonders, others also for science and gold. The spies removing rival envoys rock! For some reason there was a lot of competition over Hattusa.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Large population, and then Royal Society. Probably had to build more campi, though.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Chandra next door. Dealt with it with a largest early army ever in my games. By the way, after a long long time I had one barb camp trigger near me - it served nicely for my fresh troops to pick some early xp, although it caused some delays, then another camp triggered on India, but it created a lot of problems mainly for my advancing troops, there were some three way engagements around a worthless city in a desert which had to be razed.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
Did not look for them.

- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?
Yes, there's always something intriguing in gotm maps, thanks! R&F is a nice expansion, I like loyalty, governors and the age system, only maybe the Dark Ages are not so dark, and the Golden ones are more common than the Normal ones.

 

[arthur486]

SV @ turn 253.
(did not post save, as this is a replay)

Played totally peaceful, managed to befried both Chandra as well as Tamar (by building some walls). Completely peaceful game, settled 12 cities, had no wars, not even against city-states. Both Geneva and Hattusa survived, making this easier. A few highlights:

• Classical age went dark for me, but it didn't really matter!?
• Built Temple of Artemis in a dark age
• Classical age was followed by a heroic and then a golden age
• Spaceship was launched during the modern age, which was again ... dark
• Managed to have a 15 adjacency bonus Harbor (Reina + policies)

I think the key to success now is the speed & planning with which you can move Magnus around. Limes + Magnus chops are not for the faint hearted .

Thanks again for the game, glad I could finish in time and waiting for the next one!

 

[lordofcivs]

Defeated Twice.

 

[leif erikson]

This game is closed for submissions as time has run out.

You may continue to post here and attach saves if you wish. Results will include games above this post.

 

[Arnold_T]

SV t226 1458AD, score 1458.

missed the deadline by a few days, but thought I would finish it anyways.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
- Did you enjoy the game? What do you think of the Rise and Fall Expansion?

I did upgrade one scout to the Highlander just for kicks. was surprised to get a bunch of era points for doing so (+4?). worth it just for that!

Fun game. I think the Rise and Fall expansion is great. hope it comes out on the iPad version soon!

Thanks for the game Leif!