6otM65 After Action

[Eyswein]

Invalid Game. I got so distracted by getting a settler from the T11 Pantheon before I could production build a settler, I messed around with trying to see whether it was better to hold off on the Pantheon. I really should have created another game to test. When I started playing the 6OTM-65 without restarting this early stuff I already had pre-knowledge of 3 AIs and 4 CSs – I was quitting comparison runs at end of the Ancient Era. I tried to play like I didn’t know anything, but not a fair comparison to those who didn’t have any prior map knowledge.

T85, Domination Victory

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
3 to start (Capital, Pantheon Settler, Production Settler); I originally planned to chop a 4th city, but didn’t construct any more since my 3rd city had Iron in its 2nd ring – may have been better to get BW first and just settle on top of any found iron. Captured one settler late in the game from barbarians. All other cities were captured – finished with 31 cities.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
9-AH, 19-Writing, 33- Bronze Working, 43-Iron Working, 44-Currency, 74-Cartography, 83-Castles
41- State Workforce (Amani recruited), 51-PolPhil, 54-Mil Trad (Equestrian Orders)

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Army – Scout, Slinger; at end Black Armies; all other was levied Warriors/Swordsmen; Navy – None built, one levied Galley
- Did you use your UU's? Were they useful? Yes, at end got Black Armies, probably saved me 1-2 turns
- What was your most useful unit? Levied troops in general

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Early niceties for trade; trade on turn met starting with Mongolia since I was already at war when I met the last 4 AI

- Were City-States helpful? Did you levy any troops? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Of course, its Hungary – far faster victory than otherwise would be possible, especially with new city wall rules; Akkad also made even faster victory possible as Battering Rams were not needed

Edit to add more on CS since they are so critical for Hungary:
T11 – Tribal Village +1 Envoy
Started with one envoy: T3-Jerusalem, T5-Hattusa, T17-Akkad, T51-Yerevan
Mission to get one envoy: T26-Hong Kong, T66-Yervan (turn met, not mission complete)
Send envoy to get to 1 envoy: T44-Kumasi (turn met, not mission complete)
Hattusa and Akkad got to 3 envoys via missions; other on home continent used Amani, then levy before she moved on. After I had the key culture research I needed, I focused on culture research that provided envoys. On the other continent I didn’t start with any envoys. I’d saved 5 envoys. After I went to war with Sweden, I used Diplomatic League on Cahokia to get to 4 envoys & levy (taking Cahokia from Sweden), then got Bologna to 3 envoys & levy (DL allowed 7 envoys with only 5 available). Failed to get any others (except for Cardiff on T85, so wasn’t a factor).

- Did religion play a role in your game? Negative, except for the T11 pantheon
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy? I was hoping to get a GA, but failed (21/25)

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Not a major factor; used a governor to mitigate, had a couple captured cities become free cities, but didn’t care since I was focused on getting to the capitals

- Did the patch change your game? How do you like the new patch features?
Love the new patch features – early free settler possible from pantheon (and better in general) and tougher walls (though walls were easy with super-fast Swordsmen and Akkad bonus)
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
No path to other continent caused delay

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Domination VC?
Plan – Explore, Pump Science, Pump Gold, Levy Troops, Attack, Explore, Attack
Pump Science – planned 3 early Campuses to speed to later tech; only built one and instead built Comm Hubs in all 3 core cities; I believe Campuses/Libraries first may have been better, especially since I didn’t find Lisbon until T66
1-Buda (SIP): Scout, Settler, Campus, Monument, Trader, Builder, Builder, Gov Plaza, War Throne, etc. (later Library)
15-Pecs (4NE): Builder, Monument, Slinger, Comm Hub, etc.
28-Szek…(7SW): Builder, Monument, Builder, Comm Hub, etc.
Pump Gold – Trade with AI early and often for gold; Comm Hubs w/ Markets didn’t pan out as well as I thought they would; Comm Hub Investment for more gold
T56- war India: India was my first target as I was hoping to get there before Varu – they still had them, but only ~3 and only 2 put in a city – 1 after I already had it below 50 health and the other exiting the city to kill a damaged warrior, so a little sacrifice of units made it possible; T46-levy Jerusalem, T51-levy Hong Kong, T56-levy Kumasi
T59 – war Mali: Kumasi troops mainly headed this way, but helped with some of India
T65 – war Mongolia: levy Akkad and Yerevan for this sweep
T69 – war Ottomans: levy Hattusa for this slow roll
Note: I used levied warriors to explore, starting with one from Jerusalem, to complete continent and try to find a path to the other continent; I would have done with workers if I’d gotten a Monumentality Golden Age
T65/66 – elimination of Mali/India; T72 – eliminate Mongolia; moved swordsmen to East and West as far as possible while waiting on Cartography
T74 – discover Cartography - forces move E/W to find other continent(s)
T77 – war Sweden: Hong Kong troops helped for a few turns until they disappeared, but mainly Kumasi & Cahokia
T78 – war Zulu: Yerevan, Akkad, Lisbon troops, though I could have better focused capital
T80 – war Aztec: Cahokia & Bologna; had to defend Bologna; only nation to see Black Army troops
T85 – capture both Zulu and Aztec capitals

- Did you enjoy your game? Absolutely!!

 

[kcd_swede]

Amazing, Eyswein! Simply amazing. Thanks for the write-up... I usually don't bother since noone will learn from me, but your write-ups are greatly appreciated.

 

[nufro]

t152

 

[Gronaz]

Turn 174 domination victory
I made a lot mistakes, like taking my time, trying to grow populated and balanced cities as usual, training my own units and neglecting money and science at begining.

Spoiler :

But I played a second game, this time using Eyswein's advices and this time I won at turn 111. So I can tell: GOTM teaches a lot!

 

[Tarry]

Turn 185 DV. Back playing again, I lost interest in CIV for a while (the nerfing and nerfing on England really pissed me off), but have regained it

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 4, razed 2, captured many. I enjoy wiping civ's out rather than just taking their capitals, dead enemies cause no more problems, they have no more envoys to annoy my city-states.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
bronze, then went for things other than iron, realised too late that I needed iron to upgrade the c-s levies, and didn't realsie I could only upgrade them in friendly terretory - obvious really, why would they be upgradable in non-friendly territory?

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Built a few units early on, scouts, slingers, warriors. Later on I ended up building many troops with faith, mostly musketmen.

- Did you use your UU's? Were they useful?
The Black Armies were good, they could keep up with the levies. Huszars were useless, I didn't have any alliances.

- What was your most useful unit?
Musketman. The world congress had a vote to give infantry +5 strength through 2 ages, levied troops were all infantry.

- Was diplomacy useful? How? Did you levy any troops?
Mostly ignored diplomach, levied almost every c-s except Kumasai and Chakoi

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Hattusa was awesome, gave me iron, none of my early cities had iron.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
No, I ignored it, built up faith to buy great people and after building the chapel in my government plaze I used that pile of stored faith to buy armies and troops in my conquered cities keeping the momentum up.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Domination VC?
I ground them down. But I was too slow in starting the conquest, too slow in getting levied troops and iron working.
Ottomans, first then Mongols next. India was a nightmare to get through the mountains, I was bogged down in them for ages with what felt like armies upon armies of varu. I conquered my home continent, wiping everyone out,
About T100 ish I finally got Cartography and set off in search of the new world. Sweden, and aztecks ground down and finally the zulus who had more troops that I could count with xbow men camped in every hex unless it had spearmen in it.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
2 normal ages to start , missed golden ages by 1-2 points each time. then golden for the rest

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
wiped a couple of cities that I knew I wouldn't be able to keep. Governers and policies kept the initial conquests until I could add more conquests to stabalize.

- Did the patch change your game? How do you like the new patch features?
lots of things felt different, walls weren't a problem as I brought rams - but they were so slow my levies outpaced them constant.y. Took ages to find and suze akkad, after that walls were easy, Again, I feel I was way too slow and not focused enough/

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Varu are really really tough. And when in cities are a complete bugger to kill/capture.

- Did you enjoy your game?
very much so.

 

[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.

 

[WideCoast]

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I think I settled smthng like 6 or 7 and then conquered too many to count. I tried to save everyone from extinction tho.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Tried to focus on making money to levy armies to take advantage of the UA.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I tried to employ Black Army and Hussars as much as I could, but before it it was Archers and after it was Bombers until finally too many GDR's stomped the other continent.

- Did you use your UU's? Were they useful?
Yeah and suprisingly powerful if you were able to use the flanking bonus.

- What was your most useful unit?
Bombers by far, tho one Black Army did almost exclusively take Ottomans out when he had warriors backing him up

- Was diplomacy useful? How? Did you levy any troops?
Not really. Few here and there, but apart from Ottoman conquest it was easier and faster with the traditional way.

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

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Hindrance.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Domination VC?
At start I was going to smash India, but because of those mountains and terrain Varu's proved to be too difficult to deal with so I was left behind in everything, but was able to fend off Ottomans with dozens of Archers and then after their forces had been decimated I just got Black Army and levied support for him and Ottoman's were left with one city, which eventually fell into my hand by means of loyalty. After that I just went to Bombers.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Last 5 ages were golden. 3 Before that might have been dark. Nope

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
It made my governors jump around. Conquered more cities if I wasn't peace locked.

- Did the patch change your game? How do you like the new patch features?
!!! I knew smthng weird was going on when everyone of my Bombers were getting hurt, but why were they??

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Had to set for peace at start with India.. Badly. No idea how Drones are used and my Hussar was captured. Aztec had GDR when I came to their shores. Luckily I had 20.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes and no. If we take away my mistakes that made it annoying, only thing that's left that was really annoying was at the end with too many cities having to put smthng to build in 5-7 cities on everyturn. Like can't I just put them on that Encampment project and let me have +1g +1gg points or smthng... Instead of every few turns I have to put it back on again when there's nothing to build...............................SERIOUSLY! Almost quit this game, because of it.

But it was fun to play one after a while! Altho I did end up being late

E: forgot to save and score was 3127.

Spoiler victory pic :