6otM55 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the 6otM55 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 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]

Just a meh turn 262 CV, but considering I had to get 326 Tourists to win I will take it. The Southwest resident was cranking Culture, Wonders and GWAM, but was really free about selling off their Great Works for quite some time.

The Southeast resident shouldn't have forward settled me, as Swordsmen and Chariot Archers didn't leave them much nation left. The Northeast resident had an early, unaccompanied Settler that wanted to be Egyptian; he bore a grudge as he kept declaring war on me through the ages, brilliantly right before I got Infantry and also the turn before I finished Steel. I was Friends and Allies with most of the remaining Civs for as long as I knew them, which occasionally drug me into a war.

I will probably be the only one to have let Preslav live. I did take and release Hong Kong, took Lisbon from their previous conquerors and kept it, and took Antioch in an ill-advised and costly conflict because I wanted to build Chichen Itza there.

I went Normal, Golden, Dark, Heroic, Golden, Golden. If I would have had a Golden Classical I might have broke 200 Turns but alas, no.

I met one GWAM hog early, but even after I hobbled them and took their best cities for my own the GWAM were getting recruited at a fast pace so I Wonder-Spammed while using my captured Faith engine to precision-buy GPs when needed. Money and Resources were the best resource because most Civs gladly traded Great Works for 16GPT or some Gypsum. It wasn't until real late any other Civs decided to try for a Culture Victory.

 

[JoZilla]

CV T304 / 978pts

This was surprisingly tough. Barbarians were a big problem in the early game. I lost few units including a settler, that I managed to later capture near border of Greece&China after a long chase.

The map looked very big, and doing a conquest type of culture seemed like a big task and I was also behind in technology due to bad start. I managed to get religion and got the triple tourism and faith. I also noticed Russia having a religion nearby, so getting relics would be quite easy. I beelined to Monarchy, but I lost Mt. St Michael by few turns. I had to use governor cards for the "puppeteer", which doubles envoys in the city state. This allowed me to get suzerain of Yerevan, which gives free choice of promotion for apostoles.

At this point my culture was really low, but it started to ramp up fast as I sent apostoles to Russia to get some relics. Russia had lots of apostoles and almost converted my cities, but I managed to hold my religion. I also tried to build St. Basil Cathedral, but I lost that also by few turns. I could not get much great books as AI was doing lots of great writer points. After I got spys, I was lucky with stealing them and was able to steal like 6-10.

In the end I also got so much faith, that I was able to buy some important great people. Especially the scientist giving +300% culture from artifacts seemed powerful. However, It took really long to finish: Turn 304, while having 406 tourists.

Challenging but fun game!

 

[Victoria]

CV T196 - 1047 pts - 926 Tourism

Spoiler :

How many cities did you settle, or capture?
22 cities - 8 built, 14 captured
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Rush to swords and Oligarchy, then to muskets and printing, then to computers and did not care about culture. All swords promoted to get +1 movement, it really helps in attacks.
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Peter... although in reality the barbs sent him to the dustbin, I just helped
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Sword rush, then to Muskets... built 4 archers, 2 were killed by Peter
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Nope, did not even build it, stupid thing
- What was your most useful unit?
BY FAR the Sphinx, I built near on a hundred, at 4 tourism each they are great
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Yes, getting money in the beginning of the game as usual is very helpful.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Science CS were but I only found the other two fairly late. A bit of money from the money CS but also quite late, however that is when I needed to buy many builders for sphinx so yes.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
Nope, hate religion. It must be mentioned I did not even get divine spark, even though I took a Pentheon at about T30... I had to take Monument of the gods... helped guarantee Oracle I think.... did not get pyramids either which would have helped.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
Pushed science fairly hard initially to get to muskets quick, found the worst offending culture Civ and took all their theaters.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Normal classic then golden until the end
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Golden, no loyalty issues, musket corps rock early
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Barbs ... although I know pond maps are notoriously bad for barbs, it was their agression that surprised me
- Did you enjoy the game?
Very much so, so very much... Cleo is underrated for a CV, it could have been faster if I had got pyramids.
I really enjoyed serious setbacks with Peter and barbs, its great to be challenged. Once I got muskets though it was GG.
Another thing of note, I switched to Monarchy which helps give more tourism as most AI’s were Monarchy. This meant I had more red slots than needed and had stopped warring so I took the card that gave gold for killing barbs and this kept me amused for a while.

Favourite Pic... those Sphinxes rock!

Also of note... this sphinx is 4 tiles away and generating tourism

 

[DanQuayle]

CV T149

I had a slow start, but I was able to catch up from terrain gold + lots of resources to sell.
I have played mostly peaceful (settled 8 cities), but I took Russia's 2 best cities (with amphitheaters+GWoWs) with a small musketmen push.
At some point, I was able to buy open borders for 1 gold (which I have never seen before).

 

[Glencairn2]

@Victoria

I might be wrong, but I don't think anything out of City working range is actually generating tourism. You might double check that by comparing the lifetime accumulation (am not home now to Do that myself). Cheers!

 

[arthur486]

I have to report a draw here.

The start was surprisingly tough due to barbarians, so I restarted a few times. I managed to get a good start and attacked Russia, with Peter warning me that Russia cannot be conquered (yea right ). I easily conquered their second city and surrounded St. Petersburg. However at this point the conquered city rebelled and St. Petersburg had Victor as governor with the promotion that it could not be besieged. The first time I saw that from the AI, go figure. I knew I could not achieve a quick-ish victory, so I quit

Thank you for the game, as usual.

 

[Victoria]

Victor as governor with the promotion that it could not be besieged. The first time I saw that from the AI,

Seems to be happening a lot to me lately.... twas a tough map.

 

[kcd_swede]

Lost to china on the first try... too late to stop his rocketry win with spies who were mostly stealing gorgos stuff. Second attempt no faster, but at least I won cv at t341 with score 1642. Too bad it doesn't count. Tough game with all that space for barbs to spawn, and no easy way to get at the far side civs.

 

[yavor.makc]

In first try I was killed by Peter, i built a second city near his border and he declared war when I had only tow warriors.
Second try was success. I took all Russians cities in 75 turn, with my own only two cities. Started build new cities and Theatre State but I didn't have religion, and it was hard to increase my tourism (Gorgo was very strong in culture). And victory was only in 264 turn. It was not good result.

Third try I played without any war. Peter was busy with barbs and Pereslav. I took religion (Goddess of Harvest, + triple of religion tourism, + 30% discount for apostles). Bought 6 Colonists by faith, and a lot of workers (this Pyramids, Lian, and Feudalism card +2). Had a lot of relics, and doing projects in TS. On finish line a had a lot of sphinxes and 4 National parks. And finish in 197turn after few turn the Computers were invented. Barbs were very hard in a start but they also attacked Russia and it was very useful for me. Good tactics to got Dark Edge -> Heroic Edge -> Gold Edge. Took relicts from apostles in theological battles on Russian territory. Sold everything what i had.
But my third try was after i had seen posts and comments there , and attempt does not count.

It was a very hard and long game for me, and very interesting. Thanks.

 

[pahakuutti]

CV T160


So many luxes nearby that I went straight to irrigation and started selling stuff.
Then met Kandy and decided to go for relics.
Unfortunately, natural wonders were hard to find. Had 4 scouts running around the map and still no luck.

Also when I constructed Mont st Michel, Peter surprise dows. I want my apostles to be killed by other apostles - not by horseman.

After all, it took way too many turns to get relics up and running.

Spoiler Should have killed Gorgo :

Thanks for the game!

 

[FeiLing]

I'm not sure if the win in a culture victory is counted on the turn you became culture dominant over the last civ or the turn thereafter when the victory video has been shown to you (but no win notification would appear on that turn as it already appeared the turn before).

So either T276 or T277 CV (I guess the later since this is the turn after you selected 'just one more turn')

Somehow this game start felt incredibly slow and even though enemy civs were far away I barely got any goodie huts. Barbs were a great nuisance especially early and late
game again (come on it can not be that you send an Infantry to a barb camp that it just gets killed because they spawned 5 equally strong units and attacked you out of the fog...

Took the Pantheon where you get production on flood plains and marches and even though there were plenty of those, it didn't feel very impactful.
No religion. Had Peters for most of the game until very late when Gandhi sent a few dozen Apostles to sell me his.

Image 1: On T73 I took an emergency opportunity to declare on Peter (who refused to become friends, so he was useless to me (but not his cities ).
Free'd Preslav but was unable to conquer Peter until Muskets since he had an endless stream of horsemen which he suicided on after another to kill my chariot archers and swordmen too!
Was able to snag all of his cities much later without any warmonger penalties (I guess due to the emergency?).
Went into a dark age around this time since exploring wasn't going very well on this map. Flipped it into a Heroic Age thereafter and kept a Golden Age until the end of the game.
Took a while to find Arabia which never befriended me all game long. Was allied with everyone else (Tier3 with three of them) for the rest of the game (except
Gorgo at the end I had the alliance run out in case I need to declare on her, but I guess friendly is always better for tourism due to all the trade route bonuses).

Image 2: Love the Colosseum placement in Memphis, that worked out perfectly.
My tourism came from wonders and mostly theater squares with great writings and some themed art. Promoted Reina watched over those in Theben which also had built the Heritage for some additional Reina-boosted slots.
As soon as Naturalists became available I created a very nice National Park in the former Russian tundra, three more rather late for which I had to settle two new extra cities. But those still rocked with some appeal bonuses from Liangs tile improvement and some Sphinxes. Gandhi unfortunately somehow managed to quickly snag the Eiffel Tower
Freeing Hong Kong from Peter (even though it would have been a nice city to keep) imho also was very important since I wouldn't have gotten many great people without running tons of theater square city projects which HK boosts quite nicely.

Image 3: 358 tourists were needed
The city I placed far away from Egypt homeland between Kandy and the Chinese Empire was extremely important as it allowed me to reach every other civ with Trade Routes with it's zero-adjacencies-harbor^^
Gandhi also was so nice to send 5 trade routes of his own to that city with the Wisselbanken card (in his government) enabled, yielding me 10 production and food on top of the same bonuses for all of my caravans (for using the same policy).

 

[MrRadar]

CV t289/290, score 1489

Done! Mere hours before GS.
I stole a million books from Gorgo, my main competitor, but still it took a very long time to catch 'em all. Very much looking to the build queue, so tired to pick theatre projects again and again.

See you in the new expansion!

 

[nufro]

T 210 CV
Harvest Pantheon, Relics belief. Got lucky to steal a settler from Gorgo, eventually eliminating her. And Peter. Despite all that, could not finish in less than 200 turns, I really need to work on my end game, it sucks.
Found a new bug, where an artifact screen said it was going to be Medieval, but turned up as Classic. In general, the game is extremely buggy, did anyone ever test it?
Still enjoyed it. Thanks a bunch for creating it.

 

[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.

 

[gcampono]

225CV ...

my first GOTM game ever... I never go for cultural victory (and I had to eliminate Gorgo otherwise it would have been longer) so a nice change from the usual. I should really focus more on the victory condition from the start (I had too much science and too little culture).

For the game I started by warring with Peter, made peace and took him off eventually later, then did a little war with china. Then I started to make cultural districts anywhere, get relics, artifacts and national parks and wiped out both France and Gorgo to shorten victory times.

 

[leif erikson]

225CV ...

my first GOTM game ever...

 

[gcampono]

Thanks... by the way one thing that I'm not sure I understood... it is very clear that it is not allowed to replay turns, but is it ok to replay the entire game (there is definitely an advantage in knowing the map)?

 

[leif erikson]

In Game of the Month, your first play through is what counts. You may replay the map, but we ask that you state that in any posts in spoiler threads that it is a replay. Map knowledge is a huge advantage...