6otM47 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the 6otM47 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?
- Did religion play a role in your game?
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
- 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?

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.

 

[Casualty of war]

Resigned to the grind, because India was getting feisty with an underdeveloped army and Russia was spamming the world with Missionaries while being best friends with Mongolia. The Tourists weren't flowing and it was going to turn into a Screw It! Domination Victory.

I have never had such a promising start turn so demoralizing. First Hut popped a Scout, Scout's first Hut was a Relic on his way to finding EVERYTHING eastward. I met everyone by Turn 50 and had Tourism flowing. I got the last Religion and tripled up on Relics. But Mongolia and India are curbstomping their neighbors with enthusiasm; in their defense, my cities 4-9 had Chinese names. By Turn 100 it's a 5 Civ game. My crucial in retrospect error might have been when I took Preslav, China's last city, I kept it (3 districts!) instead of freeing it.

Then Mongolia has a Dark Age and the wheels fall off. All of Mongolia's Japanese holdings flip free then happily join Russia, at no resource expenditure to Peter. They runaway. Chandragupta starts settling Tundra then yelling at me for being too close. Gitarja is happily snuffing every Missionary I send though, so my Temples are full of religious bits.

But it's not enough. Not enough Civs left to send enough Tourists to keep up with rising defenses, and eventually defenses are climbing faster than pressure. I'm still in the Science race with a decent standing army and the ability to Faith-buy more, but that's not the game I want to play. Sigh.

 

[JoZilla]

CV @T239

Initial plan was to play peaceful cultural game trying to get as much relics as possible. Started with 2 scouts and found Kumasi, Valletta and one religious city state first. Was surprised by land shape, and it took some time to find route to Indonesia/Mongolia/Japan/Russia.

But things started going bad... Focused too much on expanding. I had 5 cities early, but not enough holy cites and units. I didn't know that there would be only 4 religions and didn't get a prophet in time. Also India and barbarians attacked me. I was able to defend from India, but barbarians razed one of my cities. At this point, I quit and thought about not finishing...

I continued later and tried to see, if peaceful culture victory is still possible. I was a lot behind. Usually in my games I'm in bad relations with AI, but in this game I was able to be friends or allied with all civ's except Korea (who didn't like my poor science). Being friends was able to slowly build and expand my empire again. I got the goddess of harvest, which gave lots of faith. I was able to buy some great writers and lots of builders. Settlers I produced, because I had Ancestral hall and the +50% card, which makes building them quite fast.

China had big of domestic culture and wonders. Mid-game it looked will take forever to build enough tourism. But chopping forests got me theater districts up fast and Goddess of Harvest gave the faith for buying artists. I even got quite many themed museums. Trading resources with AI is usually not possible due to my warmongering, but in this game it got me lots of gold and even bought some books and sculptures.

Science was really poor and could not get to computers until few turns before cultural victory. Trade routes were really helpful, as they got +100% tourism to the country. Should have send a settler near Mongolia/Japan/Russia, because I had no trade route there. Eventually cultural victory triggered @t239. I had only 1 short war with India in the beginning. I got 3 small cities from loyality flips. Otherwise it was nice and peaceful game.

 

[isopaha]

T237 CV. I settled a lot of cities as there was plenty of excellent ground around me. Also I got very lucky with goody huts in the beginning and I got a scout, 2 builders and a relic. I also went with relic strategy incl. last available religion. I had probably around 20 relics and lots of great works, but the finish time was surprisingly slow. I could have shaved off 10-15 turns by eliminating India, but he had a huge amount of (outdated) troops and I did not want to go through the trouble. I eliminated Korea earlier and most of China in the late game.

 

[Chalcedon]

CV @t184 1230AD with 946pts
63/65 great work slots filled (neglecting 2 possible Artist´s works), creating 142culture, 252faith and 789tourism... really great, more Prasats would have done fine, tho not sure how many of the 24 relics/game were left...

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?

Until t100 I had 10 cities (incl. Cap, 1 Toronto, 2 from China). Afterwards I settled one near the SE Asian Natural wonder in the East for Era Score (Golden Age secured), and one on the Peninsula south of Russia for Trade Routes (not necessary, as it turned out; didn´t build a single thing in there). So, 12 in total.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

PRAAAASAAATS. After that, Theocracy , Musketmen and Cultural Heritage.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?

Nope, but Korea was taken out by Chandragupta.

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

Core army consisted out of Warriors and Archers, as well as the relevant upgrades (Musketmen/X-Bows).

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?

A single bought Domrey secured a golden Age... those guys are great, except if you´re playing peacefully.

- What was your most useful unit?

Prasat-Missionaries by far, as well as builders.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?

Hmmm... nope. Gitarja helped me often out with Chinese war declerations... other than that just the open borders agreements for +tourism.

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

Militaristic ones gave an early boost to unit (incl. settler) building, Kumasi and La Venta were also helpful for extra district yields, as well as Antioch relatively late game.

- Did religion play a role in your game?

Core role, especially as Khmer... with the early Relic I went Goddess of the Harvest (Settler, Builder, Trader purchases), Reliquiaries (with the Prasats), Monastic Isolationism (just to be safe), the +1 amenity building and I think Tithe (?)... The massive faith output contributed well to make more Missionaries/Relics and purchase great perople. The strategy went out really well, even tho it took quite some time for my neighbours to build up Apostles. Should have build the Oracle, as I was easily ready to do so, but I underestimated the mid-late game faith output, but with 500faith/turn, it might not have been that relevant...

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

Strat was usual Khmer strat - build a nice, thriving Empire and consolidate faith/culture/tourism with Relics. Worked well, tho it got me some time to make others able to kill my Missionaries. In between, I built some - actually unnecessary - wonders, just to accompany. Wonder how fast it would work just to build up culture in e.g. Korea and conquer everyone else, but I find this way a little tedious, especially when starting betweeen multiple continents and their amenities.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?

All golden. Stay golden for Monumentality/Harvest pantheon. Did everything for that. It´s just too good.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?

Early on, I had to settle my 2nd city 1 tile away from fresh water, but with many camp/pasture possibilities and an Acquaeduct spot, it seemed okay, and turned out very well. Keeping China down by building one of the Empire´s best cities. On my small conquering, nothing special.

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

I thought Japan/Russia would kill my missionary fleet on an instant, but they just neglected their existence. Indonesia had zero Apostles midgame, and China was just messing around. On Emperor difficulty, to me it turned out not to be possible to achieve a normal Prasat-missionary strat CV as the Khmer, as no one is able to kill your Prasat missionaries on time (wonder how they turn out in Multiplayer, possibly only good for Dom/Rel). After Indonesia - hach, my sweet sweet Gitarja - built some Temples and Apostles, things went way easier----

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

Nope.
There might have been a bug in the victory score sequence, as I accomlished CV on t183, then clicked one more turn for screenshots, finished Bolshoi (?) and got another CV screen for t184.
Actually, by now, I see I didn´t use the AI bug to sell them works of Art on t1 of their creation anyhow--- but might be of no point in this game...

- Did you enjoy the game?

It was a funny game, and I enjoyed it a lot - thanks for hosting these!
I really like mostly peaceful games, as I think warmongering is way too easy, so I liked the opportunity of Khmer CV, as I only tried out the Prasat strat once before, briefly after the DLC. The map was challenging, as being landlocked on this kind of Pangaea might be hard. Looking for the top scores w/o warmongering (and with it!) here...
Another big pro was that all of the Khmer specials were available for use, just the +food from adjacent aquaeducts came in late for me, but it might have been my city placing.
Really good job on this one, guys, you gave me two evenings of great entertainment!

P.S.: I would really like a deity run for SV as Germany against especially Korea and Scotland, both not too close ;-) Have a good one, guys!

 

[cas]

T197 CV

This was basically just a domination game building theaters instead of campus. No relics even. I took out everyone except Russia, then liberated Japan capital (Japan had a rough go early, so they were the most backwards) then took out Russia. This dropped my necessary tourists to ~20 instead of >100. Maybe this is an exploit, but it seemed the quickest way to victory. Actually Japan started at 28? when liberated and then slowly decreased to 20...not sure why. I know leaving the other civs with one city would have been faster and generated more tourists, but I felt like wiping the map.

Not a fan of the culture mechanics.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I had 21 cities at turn 102. I lost track. I captured or razed every city on the map and liberated Japan's capital before finishing off Russia.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I beelined Iron working to get an edge on the immortal AI, then went to war. And pretty much stayed at war 90% of the game. Standard policies.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Everyone except Japan, who was already conquered by Russia. China first since they were busy building wonders. Then Korea -> Indonesia / India -> Mongol -> liberate Japan -> Russia.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
lots of swords upgraded to musket then infantry. some knights->tanks and ranged units thrown in. a few frigates for Russia coastal cities. switching from swords to knights early would have been faster.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
I built one UU but just for the era points. It is too slow moving and costly. Even upgraded swords/muskets are faster (+1 move promo).

- What was your most useful unit?
swords->muskets->infrantry. I wanted to try this instead of switching to knights early.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Not at all. It was a pain in the rear one time forcing peace during a war. oops on my part.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Useful late. I didn't get Babylon early enough to make a large difference, but I had so many works of art / writing / relics it was powerful for a short period late.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
India got the +10 defender belief and that was annoying. I should have used religion/reliquaries, but it's a pain in the arse to spread to 30+ cities and I was busy using the faith from 'goddess of harvest' to buy workers/settlers/archaeologists/traders/whatever. Indonesia had the 'buy campus and theater districts with faith' belief and that came in useful for several cities buying culture buildings. I'm sure Prasats and relics would have been faster overall.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
domination. build a ridiculous number of theater squares and buildings. leave one weak civ at the end.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
all golden ages. monumentality/harvest pantheon. clearly a OP combination. I wish they would completely nerf it.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
none. i moved governors around and it was fine.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I suicided a couple of apostles late from a city that had a prasat (90% sure) and I didn't get a relic. Maybe you need to found the religion or have a majority religion. I was too lazy to test the mechanics or read the details on how they work.

- Did you discover any new exploits? Did you find old ones fixed?
liberating a dead civ to lower the culture bar and finishing everyone else off seems like a broken mechanic. not sure if it's an exploit. If so, you can ignore my game.

- Did you enjoy the game?
A little bit...thank you very much for hosting the series. I wish Civ VI had a real variety of victory conditions...everything is just domination -> afterthought to whatever (culture, science, religion, etc). Also way too easy at immortal level - not bragging, comparing it to Civ IV BTS. But those are issues with Civ VI itself, not with this particular game.

cas

 

[isopaha]

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I suicided a couple of apostles late from a city that had a prasat (90% sure) and I didn't get a relic. Maybe you need to found the religion or have a majority religion. I was too lazy to test the mechanics or read the details on how they work.

I also played Khmer for the first time and was surprised it's not the apostles, but missionaries that create relics for Khmer.

- Did you enjoy the game?
A little bit...thank you very much for hosting the series. I wish Civ VI had a real variety of victory conditions...everything is just domination -> afterthought to whatever (culture, science, religion, etc). Also way too easy at immortal level - not bragging, comparing it to Civ IV BTS. But those are issues with Civ VI itself, not with this particular game.

I wish for the same thing. Though it is your own choice if you always play the same strategy. There is no money prize in GoTM, so it does not really make sense to "optimize" and ruin the experience for yourself.

On a side note, I like Immortal culture games, but on Deity it is too challenging to do without major warmongering.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I also played Khmer for the first time and was surprised it's not the apostles, but missionaries that create relics for Khmer.

I was playing a game some time ago, and my missionaries stopped providing relics upon being eliminated. I though it could be something to do with being created in captured holy districts or something else, but I think Chalcedon has provided the most rational explanation --- the 24 relic cap? As theoretically, a dead apostle with the correct promotion should also provide a relic.

CV @t184 1230AD with 946pts
63/65 great work slots filled (neglecting 2 possible Artist´s works), creating 142culture, 252faith and 789tourism... really great, more Prasats would have done fine, tho not sure how many of the 24 relics/game were left...

​

 

[cas]

I also played Khmer for the first time and was surprised it's not the apostles, but missionaries that create relics for Khmer.

I misread the description on the Prasat and thought it was apostles instead of missionaries. Thanks for pointing that out. I could have used that to my advantage in this game, although I don't think it would have shaved off more than 10 turns.

I wish for the same thing. Though it is your own choice if you always play the same strategy. There is no money prize in GoTM, so it does not really make sense to "optimize" and ruin the experience for yourself. On a side note, I like Immortal culture games, but on Deity it is too challenging to do without major warmongering.

I rarely play domination. I mostly play OCC at emporer and below for a challenge. 'Optimize' is not a strong enough word. The game is literally designed around warmongering and everything else is an after-thought by the devs. Culture victory should be mostly peaceful with very heavy / permanent penalties to tourists from warmongering. Diplo penalties should have teeth...they are currently pointless. The entire religious victory needs a huge revamp...if another civ has a majority religion, they should be able to kill your missionaries/apostles (of a different religion) using regular units without creating a war for starters.

Every time I play an aggressive dom / warmonger game, I realize just how one dimensional Civ VI is. I'll get off my soapbox now.

cas

 

[tarafran]

Cv 186
- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settle 8 , capture around 10
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I went for AH first then Astro to get my religion . After that I semi beelined knights as i had to fulfill an emergency against India.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
no I left India and China with 2 cities

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
4 archers and 2 spearman to defend against India elephants,then 7 mounted archers upgraded to knights,1 Domrey and bought 2 "Canons"

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
A little bit on the end game(only built one) to conquered the 70+ Chinese city

- What was your most useful unit?
Missionaries as I also used them to convert the cities I was conquering with the +10 belief

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
yes for trade open borders and selling lux. I also ended up at war with China because of a science pact with Indonesia which surprise me but was very welcome as I was waiting in vain for them to conquered Korea capital that I had liberated from the emergency with India

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
yes from the start I was first to found 5 city states but The Chinese conquered 2 of them
Valeta bonus to buy walls was a big plus

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Yes major the +10 attack with converted cities ,goddess of harvest,and + culture in foreign cities. I also added cathedral mid game to use my religious GW

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
2 Holly Sites first then theatre square,building or buying walls with CS Valeta bonus

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
All golden age with monumentality

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Yes I had to liberate the Korean cap from the emergency against India.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Yes I would think that after liberating the Korean cap to them they will be a bit nicer to me.
Also i suicided a few missionaries for nothing as I had no free space for relics (first time use of relics)

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

- Did you enjoy the game?
yes the emergency kept me interested as I am not much into peacefull games

 

[arthur486]

Resigned to the grind

Tried a peaceful relic strategy, worked well enough as I was able to gather ALL the relics (image attached). However, Japan & Russia had very good culture, which meant Computers or Invasion. Both would have taken too many turns as I neglected science and army , so here I am.

I needed 25 additional tourists to win, but it turned into a grind. What were my mistakes you ask?

• Allowed Indonesia to be eliminated, taking out probably the tourists needed to win
• More focus on Campuses, and beeline to Computers for 2x tourism (that negates Enlightenment)
• Should not have allowed other players to spread their religion, as you incur -50% religious tourism penalty from that.
• Monastic isolation is a must, and should be taken quickly.
• I don't really see this strategy working so well on lower levels, as the AI won't have enough apostles to finish off your missionaries.

Was definitely a very interesting game, will try this strategy again!

 

[HangingChadDad]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post, but I have d/l'd several 6otM files only to find they required the Rise and Fall expansion. Do all the games require that? If not would it be possible to label the 6otM requirements so I don't have to d/l it and try to load it before I find I can't play it?
I have not played 6otM before and I expect I'm overlooking something obvious. I'd like to try some of the older games if they don't require R&F

 

[leif erikson]

6otM 1 through 32 are all prepared in vanilla CIv6. 6otM33 on are all in Rise and Fall.

Once an expansion comes out, we go to that because the mechanics change so much.

edit - and welcome to 6otM and best of luck.

 

[Chalcedon]

Love there is a little bit about discussion here, despite the "normal" AARs

@BarbarianHunter Might have been the relic cap, but I´m not 100% sure if captured HS´s Temples turn into Prasats... Might be the same strange thing as with Kongo when capturing English Archaeological Museums and they keep the 6 possible slots... But really don´t know. But I also think that Apostles with the Martyr promotion create relics for Khmer.
Fun fact: Tho nowhere stated, killed Gurus of Khmer origin also provide relics to them. So it´s more "peaceful" religious units of khmer (those who cannot initiate religious combat) will provide relics when killed. Might be interesting for the next expansion, if religion might be reworked.... hopefully along with the diplo.

@tarafran mounted archers? you mean like...chariots?
I really hate it to have a day off from work just to notice next 6otM is coming up... tomorrow!!! happens all the time

 

[HangingChadDad]

6otM 1 through 32 are all prepared in vanilla CIv6. 6otM33 on are all in Rise and Fall.

Once an expansion comes out, we go to that because the mechanics change so much.

edit - and welcome to 6otM and best of luck.

Thanks very kindly.. I appreciate this answer and all the work you obviously put into this site.. Thanks again

BTW, I can probably spend most of my life expectancy doing the first 32!

 

[DanQuayle]

T132 CV

I didn't have the best game, but at least it was an interesting one.

I got DoW'd thrice this game: once by each neighbor.
First by Korea: nothing particularly noteworthy happened during this war as it was foreseen when I saw Seondeok's units move my way.
Second by China. Qin actually did surprise me. He moved his units next to my border and then decided to do... nothing. He actually waited with his units (doing nothing for 15-20 turns). And when he finally decided to attack, he did in fact surprise me as I had moved my units to the Korea front. Qin's army mainly consisted of archers with very few melee units, but one heavy chariot. He actually lowered my south city's hp very low with his archers. When I got rid of his melee units there was no way he could take my city. Even at that point the AI still continued to target my city with its archers to keep my city hp near zero when it could easily target fire (and kill in one turn) my units which were in LoS (see screenshot). This example clearly shows that the AI is coded to focus fire on cities no matter the situation. After eliminating China's army, I took the city of Longxi which was near my borders which triggered an emergency against me. I am not sure if it is because of the emergency, but China then refused to make peace for at least the next 30 turns. Our war must of have lasted 40-50 turns total which was kind of annoying. Qin had the lowest army score of all civilizations at below 100 during the whole war which was maybe less than a quarter than mine. He systematically refused peace until he realized he was maybe being stubborn and was now willing to accept peace for a measly 30+gpt (lol). When the emergency was about to get over he bent and actually offered me a small sum when absolutely no material change had occurred (no units killed or anything for a while). If this wasn't a culture game, I would have wiped him out. Actually, since he was in a dark age and me in a golden age, I was afraid that even taking one more city would eventually wipe him out as he did eventually lose Preslav and Changsha to population pressure with no further conquest. He also participated in an emergency against me when I took Toronto, so that may partially explain why he refused to make peace, but his army still had no chance against mine.
Third by India: Chandragupta literally parked his units in a straight line right against my border and decided.... surprise not to attack (see screenshot). He did however decide to attack me about 20 turns later when all my cities to the west had walls and when he had nearly no range units! (Only one archer in fact.) As we all know the AI can't take cities with walls unless maybe when it has some siege units. Chandragupta capitulated 10 turns after engaging. Here's a more reasonable guy.

Other weird slightly noteworthy moments:
Gitarja ask me for a joint war against Russia when neither of our empires where nearly close to Russia (Russia had then the lowest army score and Indonesia the second lowest)
Hojo offered me out of the blue a ridiculous sum of gold for horses inbetween turns when he already had some (never seen that before, see screenshot)

Play analysis
I misplaced my first expansion as I initially thought Apadana would be in the game and I originally wanted to build the Pyramids in my first expansion.
Overall, I had too many cities for such a short game.
Taking the the two CS Toronto and Carthage during the end of the classical era got me a lot of hate and eventually cost me open borders from Russia after being denounced by Peter. Taking these two cities however permitted me to settle the coast with the possibility of a direct trade route to Mongolia. The game was too short to get a trading post in a Mongolian city and a trade route to Japan.
On immortal, the enemy apostles come way too late. Getting the martyr promotion on missionaries is nice, but that also means you have to wait for the AI to make apostles and that comes too late on the immortal difficulty level. The first apostle I saw was from China at T111.
In fact, China made only one apostle in the whole game despite being third in faith generation. Furthermore, that sole apostle got killed by a single missionary of mine! Because I was then in Theocracy and had +5CS religious combat strength and maybe higher intel from printing press.
In my game, the AIs who founded a religion where: China, Indonesia, Japan and Russia. As I said, China made 1 apostle, Indonesia made 2. Russia's religion got nearly (totally?) wiped out by Japan. That left only Japan for relic generation and they were far away.
Japan was first for domestic tourists for most of the game and I was surprised to see Russia jump first on the final screenshot. I only lost the first great writer to Russia and got all the others.

 

[MrRadar]

T230CV, Score 959

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Total 11 cities, settled 8, 1 Korean city flipped completely, 2 Indian flipped into Free Cities, had to be helped with troops, though to become part of the Khmer empire.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Prasats, and then... Cristo and Computers. Had to go to those techs and civics.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
No, everybody lived happily ever after.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Had some warriors->swords->5 muskets->infantry and some slingers->3 archers->xbows->field cannons. Also built 3 jumbo balistas.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Yes, 3, they were helpful to bring down walls and defences.

- What was your most useful unit?
Missionary, I guess.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Oh yeah, friends and peace of mind with everyone, except Korea, and later unfriended China, as I thought I'd go to war with them but didn't. Research alliance with Chandra, Military with Gitarja.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Yes, as long as they lived. Only 4 survived, but man, Babylon, I acquired a new appreciation of it, especially with all those relics, it was quite a scientific boost.
China went completely berserk with aggression against CS, killed each and every one of them in the neighborhood. One emergency fired against them, but I was to lazy to engage, besides, at that moment Qin had better units.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Yep, turn 2 relic secured a pantheon, I picked reliquaries, then founded religion and chose monastic isolation, so my missionaries could die right on my borders.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
I generated a ton of relics but... they weren't enough. I could not catch Qin, he built lots of wonders and ran away with culture. I had to trudge all the way to Printing press, Cristo and Computers to finally catch him.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Classical and Renaissance Normal, the rest Golden.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
I did not have any trouble holding my cities, but neighbors lost 3 cities to me.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Being spawned on a confluence of 4 continents counts as a surprise Ran colonial taxes as soon as they were available.
Also, my scout ran into a canal city that blocked passage and had to wait until in a hurry I researched embarkation for them, only then I finally met Russia and Japan, a bit belatedly.

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

- Did you enjoy the game?
It was interesting, but at the end started to drag on, Qin was too fast with his culture, it took a long time to catch him.
Korea DOWed me twice with surprise wars, I did not take cities from her, but she had to pay some ~5K gold in reparations.
Anyway, thanks for the game!

 

[kcd_swede]

Spaceship loss to Mongols, 1165pts t364
I was just trying to stay alive. Was at war with India most of the way, allies with Korea and China most of the time. Spies were useful for slowing down space races (I got my own Earth Satellite up - almost), but Mongols snuck up on me--- China and Japan were leading the SS race, and I was effective at stoping them, I think.

Anyhow, I have a better feel for what winning a war takes on Immortal level now. So hopefully one of these days I'll get a victory there.

Lot of fun, even though I could see I was going to eventually lose.

 

[Arnold_T]

CV t164 score 743

Never tried the suiciding Missionary strategy before.
I guess I should have focused more on Culture and great works of writing though, since they come earlier (having to wait for AI Apostles)
Played pretty peaceful and worked to keep all the AIs in the game.
I stuck with Monarchy till the end, since most of the AIs were in Monarchy and it helps with tourism if you are the same government.
Fun game, thanks guys!

 

[Arnold_T]

T132 CV

... I misplaced my first expansion ...

Nice game @DanQuayle! Looking at your screenshot of t65, it's very impressive. pop 22 with culture per turn of 33. I guess you prioritized settlers? or did you capture any settlers from anyone?
And which city was your first expansion? the one to the north? or west? What do you think would have been the optimal first expansion site?