6otM57 After Action

[Eyswein]

Try one more because they are rare and once done, another one is not so much fun. You will also find a lack of chopping odd compared to most games.

Not surprised about T90. I am a lazy player, do not micro and make mistakes so my times can always be shortened. But I am glad to be of help. Rerunning GOTM is a great way to learn. Not sure 80 is possible but may be. The record Is 58 but that was using Stonehenge as the Chinese.

So level of the game is quite important, for example the fastest CV’s are on deity because there is more money. This being an emperor game means religions up around T70 but seems slower now. It is also a random. I know I had 3 up around T70. Just a question of what the AI pathed on the day. Anyways, glad to be of help, welcome and good luck

It's amazing what can be done with full map knowledge - definitely can go so fast that doesn't compare to a regular game. Attached is a replay I just did with a T74 win. Initially only built 4 cities with Holy Sites and then 2 Harbors for 3 total trade routes. Eventually built a 5th city with faith to be able to trade with the most important AIs. I think if I'd explored a little more efficiently (religion on T43, but met 4 AI after that with last one on T58), paid better attention to who was about to get the -50% tourism for different religions to send apostle/missionaries to stop it ahead of time, and gotten my 5th city out faster I could have broken T70, but didn't micromanage quite enough. Still insane and less than 1/2 the turns it took me on my real attempt.

Spoiler Picture :

 

[Eyswein]

Open borders and trade routes is 50% extra which is powerful. What really annoys me is you have to micromanage these, especially open borders as you can miss when the deal finishes.

Trading is the worst, most tedious part of the game right now IMHO. Finally got production queues, but I'd really like to see better trading features: 1) I want to trade X for Y - list the AI which will make the trade and how much will they offer, 2) notification than open borders have ended, 3) etc.. Let me decide what I want to trade - i.e. is gold more important that happiness, are strategic resources more important than gold, is diplomatic favor more important that gold, etc. - but don't require me to check every AI every single trade to see who may give me 4gpt while another will give 13gpt for the same thing.

 

[Victoria]

Trading is the worst, most tedious part of the game right now IMHO. Finally got production queues, but I'd really like to see better trading features: 1) I want to trade X for Y - list the AI which will make the trade and how much will they offer, 2) notification than open borders have ended, 3) etc.. Let me decide what I want to trade - i.e. is gold more important that happiness, are strategic resources more important than gold, is diplomatic favor more important that gold, etc. - but don't require me to check every AI every single trade to see who may give me 4gpt while another will give 13gpt for the same thing.

Trading is broken ATM, unlimited gold breaks the GOTM.
I’ll probably still play the next one
... and yes, know the map and it is amazing how short you can get a victory.... and how long you probably have to work to get it right. Too long for me I am lazy.

 

[Arilian]

I noticed, nobody build PA.

That is fine, however if you are not aware they give 4 golden age point, so if you did not build it keep one Toa, and if you are just missing a few points at a new era, you can add 4 points easily...

 

[arthur486]

Take 2 - CV @ Turn 141
The Maori were so nice, I had to play them... twice!

Went for the same strategy that landed the T155 win already described, with a few changes:

• Managed to get first meeting bonus with ALL city states, due to map knowledge (missed a couple on the first playthrough)
• Started attacking city states with Vilnius
• Attacked Dido and left her with 2 cities, which really ticked off everyone
• Only build 2 Maraes, where they really helped
• Went to Sun Tzu and retired him for the Great Work

Changes observed from first playthrough:

• As I was less careful about not ticking off neighbours, I got declared in 3 turns: Wilhelmina+Mansa Musa, Harald+Dido, and finally Kristina
• Since I emphasized science, got Flight on T117, but also got later era scientists; getting to Galileo and Newton was much more difficult, which slowed the path to computers.

 

[kcd_swede]

Trading is broken ATM, unlimited gold breaks the GOTM.
I’ll probably still play the next one
... and yes, know the map and it is amazing how short you can get a victory.... and how long you probably have to work to get it right. Too long for me I am lazy.

I play the game for fun. Thats why I dont play the algorithms.

 

[Arnold_T]

CV 167 1070AD score 720

Thought I better finish up this game before starting the next one! I was just getting rolling with tourism when the game ended. Created Piopiotahi National Park on t167, and on t168 (after hitting one more turn) I themed an art gallery, finished Petra, and had an Apostle die and create another relic. And I was only 10 turns away from Flight.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
settled 7, didn't capture any. tried to play peacefully, but got declared on because of my missionaries and Apostles.

- Did you use your UU?
built one. didn't use it. I found it very useful in my practice Kupe game though. it is a good unit. no strategic resources required, and good strength in combat.

- What was your most useful unit?
Apostles. had three produce relics by picking fights with Dutch missionaries.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
no, I haven't figured out that part of the game yet.

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

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
I initially thought I was going to go for Flight, but then ran into Kandy and thought Reliquaries would be the best. By turn 80 or so the game kept telling me every once in a while that I was so close to winning, just a few turns away. Something is wrong with those calculations. I eventually figured out that my three relics from natural wonders didn't have enough tourism momentum to get the victory, so I started working on getting more relics from martyrs, and working towards artists and archaeologists.

- Did you enjoy the game?
fun game, thanks! Kandy made it too easy though. I would have liked to get to rock bands. I guess I could keep playing the game to get there

 

[nufro]

T114 CV
Monument to the Gods + Reliquaries

 

[Leucarum]

My first time doing a game of the month! I don't think I'm going to be racing anyone on the thread but it was a fun playthrough.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
17 settled, 1 captured. I went for an early Toa rush against Sweden, but loyalty pressure made me decide to raze and then backfill the cities afterwards. I initially settled by Piopiotahi, but sent my settler wave south, so almost all my cities were on different continents to my capitol until the very end.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I first beelined towards Toa, then beelined towards Cartography to grab the Casa de Contracion. Finally I beelined flight because Marae.
For policies I went colonization first, then the policies which help cities on other continents, and finally all the policies which boost tourism.
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
I left Sweden with 1 city because I wanted more people to get tourists from.
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Early on, a bunch of Toas without much of a navy. Later on I switched to naval production
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Toas are nuts. I could have probably taken most of Sweden with only one...
- What was your most useful unit?
Toa, then naturalists.
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
My early rush meant everyone hated me until the very end of the game.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Not enormously. I forgot about Kandy's ability, and could definitely have pushed for a much earlier culture victory as I was their suzerain for all the game.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
Religion less so than faith. I founded an early religion, but Earth Goddess had already been taken.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
With Sweden knocked down nobody was competing for artists and musicians, so I had a free run there. But I had a ludicrous amount of faith, and I had left my northernmost continent almost empty, so I ended up filling it with national parks and a bunch of size 2-3 cities. I had 6 parks before I switched to Rock Bands as soon as cold war was available and they contributed a lot of my tourism. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Flight of the Conchords pushed me over the victory which was satisfying.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
I had no dark ages, I only had one normal age.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Sweden's loyalty pressure was a problem. I had to burn their cities and rebuild afterwards. It made every other civ hate me until the end.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The AI tried to launch a few joint wars against me, but each time I was able to pay someone closer to them to join in and the only time an enemy landed on one of my islands was when Norway leveraged a single crossbowman from Buenos Aires...
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yeah, it's interesting to compare the styles of play people went for. I'll definitely try to keep on with these

 

[leif erikson]

My first time doing a game of the month!
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yeah, it's interesting to compare the styles of play people went for. I'll definitely try to keep on with these

Welcome to Game of the Month!

This forum is all about comparing and learning from each other. Thank you for joining us and writing up your game.

 

[Leucarum]

This forum is all about comparing and learning from each other. Thank you for joining us and writing up your game.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to replaying this one and actually trying to make use of Kandy...

 

[WideCoast]

CV: 351 or 352

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I settled like 10 and then conquered Sweden for 6 or 7 more.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I rarely play islands or CV so they threw me off quite a bit when I was accidentally going science&cash for few occasions and then remembered I was supposed to focus culture
- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
Sweden at pretty early date
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
TOA's mainly with few quadriremes which I upg. to Frigates but never used army again.
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Yup, very useful!
- What was your most useful unit?
TOA by far
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Not really, didn't bother myself much with it. Accepted strategies for gold ones.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
I was suzerain of 4 and got bonuses from everyone xept faith ones so yeah I guess they were quite helpful, but the only problem I had was Dido conquering cultural one(s).
- Did religion play a role in your game?
Nope, just faith buyed few national parks and rock bands(many).
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
All over the place, lol. Finally by focusing culture with art museums and when available faith bought rock bands, which I forgot at one point and all died...
- 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?
Nothing. AI seemed to flip stuff constantly back and forth.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
How much sea rises when it finally kicks in and how hard it is to build barriers with "only" city center
- Did you enjoy the game?
Thought it did felt a bit like grinding turns to get the victory at end, but I guess I could have made it a lot shorter by playing better.

I pressed one more turn and saved it then. I just realised at the victory screen that I have no Idea should I put it like that or not

 

[seb_schmitt]

CV in turn 104/105

Was extremely lucky: discovered Piopiotahi with my settler on turn 1 and settled next to it, discovered Hattusa on turn 3, Kandy on turn 9. Switched then to reliquinaries strategy which worked quite well (I had read about that a couple of weeks ago and tried it out in a different game already).

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
4

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Research: Mining (for bronze mine), Husbandry (for camp), Astrology (after meeting Kandy), Irrigation (for plantations), Construction (for Toa), ...
Policies: Political Philosophy, Theology, ...

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

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Built no unit, just upgraded warrior to Toa to get 2 envoys

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Toa helped to kill some barbarian camps

- What was your most useful unit?
Apostle by far

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Trading diplomatic favour against gold speeded up things a lot, was able to purchase 3 shrines, 3 temples and 3 lighthouses with gold. Open borders helped to achieve CV, although I was a bit sloppy on checking each turn. Maybe could have won 5-10 turns earlier if I had.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Kandy was key to victory, Babylon also helped a lot with Science for relics and Cahokia helped me to find the last natural wonder (Tsingy)

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Two key roles: temples offered space for relics, Apostles helped to find city states and convert other civs (religious victory would have served as plan B, if relics wouldn't have been sufficient / trade routes wouldn't be established in time).

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
Just found out by reading Victorias reply and opening her save that I basically followed the same strategy, I even took the advice she gave me some weeks ago and sent builders with one charge left around for discovering city states and villages. The padawan starts to learn. ;-)

Had some minor differences in my game though: I skipped Missionaries in favour of Apostles, since I already had the gold to buy a temple when I finally got my great prophet

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
One golden age was enough, nothing special to achieve it with so many city states to suzerain and civs to meet.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Almost no effect, chose locations with no loyalty malus to settle.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Discovering Tsingy after suzeraining Cahokia was the one surprise. Another one was that AI seemed to hesitate to found religions, although they already had their great prophets.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, since it was completely different to what I ususally play. I rarely achieve victories withouth any war.

Thanks for the game!

 

[Half Nelson]

MAORI CV T201 (1084 points, Ivan the Terrible).

So close to my first sub-T200 CV in Civ6;- when Maori tourism takes off, it picks up pace VERY quickly!

From T110 I headed S and conquered Sweden with limited resistance (Note to self:- keep Sweden alive for Nobel Prize competitions?). This gave wonder tourism which I enhanced by building Colosseum and Colossus in Maori cities. I then focussed on science for Flight which I completed T143, tripling my tourism immediately. Establishing OB and trade routes with the remaining AI civs and building up second-level great works kept up the pressure and seaside resorts (surprisingly few spots for these) and ski resorts (lots of these:- love ‘em) completed the victory. I produced some rock bands on the penultimate turn but they never got to perform!

The Maori are great fun to play on this type of map for a CV, making me play total opposite of my usual industry-heavy style. Marae are very strong for CV, be interesting to try with them under different circumstances. Toa are great, especially in groups where they improve overall fighting capability a lot, even at sea. I built a Pa on a remote island which allowed an outnumbered Toa to survive and wreak revenge on barbarian hordes.

Regarding GS in general, it took me some time to iron out gameplay bugs (I ended up re-installing the whole game and still suffered a crash at T118) but the maps and new terrain look great. Random events add realism, although having a Cat-5 hurricane rip through your capital (-5 pop, loss of 6 water-based improvements) might be bad news in the early stages of a Deity game:- the improvements were erased, not just “pillaged”.

Great map, thanks for the game!

PS:- reading through the reports, using Kandy was obviously the key here. I did discover it fairly early but was too busy looking for science and culture CS to give it much thought. I didn't even found a religion!

 

[Mkv]

CV T270

It is my first GOTM and I really enjoyed playing it. Made me play a different scenario than what I'm used to. Should have thought through a little bit better though. Could have done a lot better and will do on next GOTM, but it was a really fun game.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
9 settled, 3 captured (Preslav and 2 of Mali's cities including capital).

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Went for tourism, but could have rea=searched flight way before, if it wasn't for an emergency that got 6 AIs on war against 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?
Early galleys, then a caravel + frigate navy. No army.
- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
Upgraded my initial warrior to get 4 era score.
- What was your most useful unit?
Settler
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Yes. I avoided a second emergency all against me after I captured Mali's capital. The first one was when I captured Preslav.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
I was Suzerain on pretty much all city states but didn't do a very good job exploiting.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
No religion, but used faith to finish game with rock band.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
Since it is my first GOTM, I wasn't very smart to finish fast. I was lucky to find the wonder right away and settled there surrounded by city states. Thought about invading Dido but decided to take Preslav and then it was everyone against me. But it was good, because AI is terrible at war and even 1v6 was a pretty fun war and the emergency gave a bonus for me.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Don't remember.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
I settled a late city that had to be settled on one tile to the left of the perfect tile because of -20 loyalty pressure on the next one.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Not much, except for the emergencies against me. I also called for an emergency against Harald for capturing my friend Hattusa, and liberated it.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Definitely. Really nice to try the new civ and on a different map type. Also will be looking on planning better for the next GOTMs

 

[leif erikson]

It is my first GOTM and I really enjoyed playing it. Made me play a different scenario than what I'm used to. Should have thought through a little bit better though. Could have done a lot better and will do on next GOTM, but it was a really fun game.

Welcome to CivFanatics and Game of the Month.

Thanks for the write up and glad you enjoyed your game. Good luck in future.

 

[Khalid]

CV T184

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
settled capital E of Piopiotahi, then settled 10 other cities all around the islands, most of them with Ancestral Hall. Conquered 4 cities from Dido and its ally Ngazargamu.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
religion, harbors, theather squares, political philosophy, flight, artifacts, computers.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful? What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Most useful UU. Used it to conquer Dido. Excellent with the no resource requirement. Did not use the Pa, just for the era score and the achievement.
I built galleys and quadirems, upgraded to caravels and frigates to pillage stuff in the late war.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I allied Victoria to avoid her cultural pressure on the Dido's cities. Economic alliance with Mali just for fun. Most people liked me. In the end, Ottomans, Sweden and Harald DoWed my allies and I joined the war. I used it to pillage lots of gold and faith. My city state allies get rid of most of the enemy armies and destroyed a few Swedish cities after I bombarded them to 0 health.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
I met 11 city states and became suzerain of all of them. Met around half of them with the 2envoys for the first envoy policy card.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
took the 1+faith from appeal pantheon and founded religion with jesuit educatation and +2 gold per city and cathedrals. I had lots of faith from the pantheon and unimproved tiles which I used to buy settlers, some great people for city state quests and a lot of the cultural buildings.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
Not improve tiles, rush to flight (I only decided on this strategy at mediaval age though). Lots of Marae, artists and artifacts. Wanted to use rock bands, but wan just a few turns before researching them. Faith to buy cultural buildings.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Only golden ages. Too much era score in Ancient. Even got the circumnavigation bonus 3 turns before classical era. Monumentality and faith bought settlers for colonization of the world, free inquiry to rush flight and reform coinage.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
No effect on loyalty - had a cultural alliance with Victoria!

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
No barbarians on the starting continent. Many boats from Norway and Dido. But no match to my quadirems parked on the ocean. Very easy conquest of Dido.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Very much. Love the blind start and unusual build.

 

[FeiLing]

T179 CV

Settled next to Hattusa. In hindsight, settling on such a small landmass turned out not as bad as I thought it would, probably because the main tourism did not come from the Marae.
Instead I "kandy'd" two early relics, found a 3rd much later in a goody hut and made two more during the last 15 turns via Mont St. Michel Apostles but apparently that was good enough.

When my 3 Relics found place in St. Basils was when my Tourism journey started (the two Writings were bought from allies). And only 15 turns later it ended already. During those 15 turns these things happened:
Computers (and a bit earlier Flight) was researched. Conservation civic was researched (I had nearly all Walls in plenty of Cities (this was probably the most tourism source actually), 4 National Parks were created.
La Ventian Colossal Heads (which work particularly well with Maori) were the secret match winner. Seems to me like they are better and much earlier available than seaside resorts (with hardly any placement restrictions).

I also learned that Marae will grant tourism on ICE (which probably means that it does add two tourism to a tile on top of the tourism you get for it's culture to tourism conversion by flight (I wasn't sure about this before).

Spoiler :

 

[nikAlto]

T249 victory. I haven't played an emperor game before. was surprisingly easy - after about T100 i really pulled far ahead of all AI in both culture and science. they were never a threat for the victory. thoroughly enjoyed this GOTM. Maori a great new civ. was super fun.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
settled 9. captured two from sweden at the end, but razed both of them. was trying to whittle sweden down as was delaying my cultural victory with their high domestic tourism.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
nothing for first 100 turns. then beelined flight and computers, and colonialism. only got flight about T175.

- Did you send anyone to the dustbin of history?
no. i played peacefully up until the very end, when decided to attack sweden to speed things up.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
only have about 5 quadriemes, which i kept levelling up. ended up with battleships. army small - just one unit fortified in each city.

- Did you use your UU? Was it useful?
no. only had one toa. for the era score. didn't use it.

- What was your most useful unit?
probably builders.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
not really. not a major factor. none of the votes at the world congress impacted my game in any way.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
yes. i was suzerien of many. i think mostly helpful in the early game, as i found most of them first, and i think i got a good lead in many areas due to CS assistance.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
not at all.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Culture VC?
i mainly played to enjoy. culture strategy was flight/computers, colonialism, then three national parks. tourism was pushing 500 when i won. had only just got one rock band, but didn't get to use it.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
mostly golden ages. useful with monumentality for purchasing builders/settlers. i had one at the very end that boosted tourism (can't remember what it was called)

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
didn't impact settling.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
no real surprises, other than how enjoyable the game was. great map and starting location. loved being away from other civs and near all the CS.
one surprise was that no one civ provided any real challenge. i have had the AI play a stronger game on king and prince (sometimes). none of them had any real victory strategy. lots of wars between them, but none changed the dynamic in any real way. only irritant was sweden in the end building up a bit of culture.
oh, one surprise. AI went nuts building wonders. all of them. so many wonders built.

- Did you enjoy the game?
very much. great map. fun civ. great game. keep up the excellent work with the GOTM

 

[leif erikson]

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