6otM72 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the 6otM72 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?
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they 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 Science 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 your 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.

 

[Palo]

SV in turn 236, score 2750.

I have a post in opening action to describe my first 100 turns.

After cleaning out Spain and then England to take over my starting landmass I started filling in with settlers which were mostly faith bought as I was in a golden age the entire game. There was tons of space on my landmass so I wasn't planning on conquering anyone else but the Maori just had it coming for some reason so I headed over their way. Right as I was about to take them out the Mali finished the Forbidden Palace which surprised me as I was just about to start building it. My scheme of having all the policy card wonders now ruined I determined to conquer them and get my wonder back. Right after I took Mali's first city in a declared colonial war I teched up to field cannon and the bombards, knights, jannisaries, and field cannon made short work of them. I didn't quite finish them off though and left them fighting my military ally Peter while I headed up north to liberate Kabul from the Egyptians.

Egypt was nearing completion on the Petra which I wanted in one of my Mali cities so after liberating Kabul I continued on to conquer five more Eqyptian cities. My forces then headed south to take part in a Scottish emergency because they were getting torn apart by the Khmer. At this time I settled the south end of the Mali's former territory to fill that out. Right after peacing out with Egypt I get an alert that I've become culturally dominant over all but one civ so... I gave Egypt back all their cities but their capital which I guess I can't give back? I also gave Mali a couple of their old cities back and about 3-4 new ones I'd settled just keeping his capital and one other and I gave a city to Shaka I'd settled to his north.

At home I was just finishing up settling my continent when I started buliding space ports. Oops, I forgot to build the government building to let me use workers to rush space projects. So I hard built all the projects.

I was suze of 15 of the 18 city states at the end of the game.

Spoiler :

I don't have a winning turn 236 save but do have a turn 230 save from when I woke up this morning.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

SV T241

Probably should have assigned specialists in all the campus spam cities (ie. all of them), could have shaved a few turns perhaps. Forgot to use the Royal Society until the last 15 turns or so but I don't think it made much of a difference as the production in the spaceport city was around 300.

Spoiler Spaceport Production :

Probably could have driven a 20% production efficiency for campus research grants with the warlord's throne but didn't have much interest in warring beyond Harold, Spain, and England. After securing the continent I didn't do much other than faith summon builders, chop, mine/mill, and run research grants.

 

[Palo]

Lol, just realized I never built Ruhr Valley at all. It was definitely still available, too.

 

[Ceydezed]

SV Turn 225, Score 1775

- How many cities did you settle, or capture? Probably settled around 12 or so, captured 2 from Norway, 4 from Spain and 6 from England. Also took Akkad and La Venta who were not doing anything for me and were being suzerained by Spain and England while i was warring them.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Went for early religion. Quickly figured out that Scotland was in the game as someone made Great Scientist point almost from turn 1, so i didn't bother too much to rush early campus to get Hypatia. Got all the other great scientists that mattered though. After this i went for archer to conquer Norway, and Jannissary (who can be upgraded from swordsman for super cheap) so i could kill Spain and England. Once this was done i built a lot of wonders that i usually ignore (Huey, Chichen) and focused on maximising science and culture. Also liberated Geneva from the Zulus with Frigates and the unique boat. The end of the game was peaceful.
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change? Had a decent taskforce early on to take care of the neighbours. At the end of the game they were just sitting around.
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful? The Janissary is quite strong and can be obtained easily (cheap) - so definitely useful to kill some low-tech neighbours
- What was your most useful unit? Builders as in any science game id say
- Was diplomacy useful? How? No
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states? The lack of culture city states was a bit problematic and my Kilwa was only useful for Science
- Did religion play a role in your game? I got an early religion and use the faith to buy builders and settlers - and made probably a decent amount of gold by having all my cities following my belief.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC? With so many cities and good campus location it was easy to get a lot of Sciences, actually it was probably one of the first time ever that my science was outpassing my production, so i actually discovered most of the space project without having finished to build the spaceport. But eventually timing was okay and i had 4-5 spaceports in good cities, and i finished to build the research station just in time to pump projects.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy? Only golden ages, had something like 70 points over the treshold for the last one.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects? No loyalty issue whatsoever. Even when i took Geneva from the middle of Zulu land it was full loyal (although i liberated them afterwards). I assume Zulu has some loyalty mechanism or so? Haven't paid attention to that.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? The little hidden area in the middle of my continent was fun, i was trying to figure out what it was until satellites, would have enjoyed a tribal village or so in there! Palenque was constantly being sieged, which was sometimes confusing. My main spaceport got pillaged around turn 215 despite the fact that i had 2 spies in place including one lvl 3 with all relevant promotions. That definitely was a big piece of bad luck.
- Did you enjoy your game? I never won with the Ottomans before, so it's good that it is done. Conquering is definitely easy with them, so its nice to have had the opportunity for a aggro-scientific game!

Spoiler Final Screenshots :

 

[tarafran]

SV Turn 213
- How many cities did you settle, or capture? Settled around 15 , captured the civs on my continental mass, one from Maui that I sold for gold and one from the Scotts after an energency
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? I wanted to play the faith as culture game again so I went for a fast religion then slowly thru the tree toward science tech trying to fill the eureka without loosing the district discount
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change? 2 warriors 6 slingers/archer/2 catapult and 1 horse .enough to conquer the continent.small navy 5 unit one of them the UU
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?The navy UU was great to clear huts and barbs camps,the Janisors looked pretty strong on attack but i started to go peace full as I was low on gold and very low on friendship
- What was your most useful unit?the Unique advisor was awesome for loyalty and the +10 attack and then to get the civ to like me again
- Was diplomacy useful? How?gold
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
- Did religion play a role in your game? i based my game on it with the faith/culture from shrine and temple coupled with the one giving you the religion in your cities when you have already a majority of it
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC? rush 3 cities,build 3 Holy sites get the religion and stay in golden age to spend the faith on builders and settlers.Build a small army to clear the barbs and the noisy neighbors
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?3 GA
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects? the only time is when I capture a Maui city . I had declared war as I thought it would give me the cassus bell eureka ....nope did not (still have to figure this one out) .I could not leave my trusted UU adviser as he was needed againts the Scott emergency
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? yes I lost 6 turn to tornadoes on my main space district.
also I never play this level and i was banking so many heroic points I was unsure to be able to stay in future GA at this rate but it was really no problem
- Did you enjoy your game? Yes I like a little fight ,big change from peace full SV

 

[Casualty of war]

I've got to get better at pushing toward The Enlightenment and Globalization; those are the big Science surges that get you where you need to be. I also was way too nice and should have cleared my continent; there were a lot of good Campus spots in England.

A couple of interesting quirks. Palenque always wanted a Trade Route to satisfy a quest, ha ha. Someone actually did use Spies successfully against my Spaceport once, which set me back probably 20 Turns. I've never had so many Civs beg me for Friendship and Alliances, even after I wiped out Zulu and Maori. I kept getting Great Scientists too late to really put their ability to use; thanks but no thanks, I researched Chemistry and Computers ages ago. I was not expecting Robert Goddard to appear or I would have been cranking Industrial Zone Projects; he showed up barely in time to help out with Laser Stations.

Turn 251 SV, 1667 score. Thank you for the game.

 

[Bangau]

Turn 210 SV.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Started with three cities and found out how weak Spain was, so started taking their two cities as well. Meanwhile had all the golden ages and always Monumentality, so kept getting settlers from that. Moved my small army over to England and took her four cities. All in all captured 6 and founded 15 cities. The last 2 or 3 never did anything anymore towards the victory.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
First headed towards holy sites asap and build them in my first 3 or 4 cities to get the faith income going. Campuses (so many good spots!) after that and then machinery (to upgrade the archers into crossbowmen) and apprenticeship (industrial zones). Education off course for the universities. Then take the fastest eureka and inspiration enhanced path to rocketry. Learned once again how important culture is for a fast science game, this time the timing was quite ok getting the governments and such in time to take advantage. Still some bad timing here and there (e.g. getting Royal Society 7 turns or so after starting the first space project...).

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Tiny little army of warriors (into swordsmen) and archers (into crossbowmen), added a few siege (we're the Ottomans after all!) but they helped conquer only the last city, could have not build those...

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Not at all actually. The Ottomans have great unique units, but even the era score wasn't needed this game. Could have been a pure vanilla civ.

- What was your most useful unit?
Probably the archer and the crossbowman? Captured Spain and England with a handful of these and two swordsmen.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Befriended Norway early on. Spain got pissed at me, killed them. That angered England, killed them. Very diplomatic I think. Only the Maori knew from the other continents, so they were pissed for a long time. But eventually most of the world (just not Peter for some reason, he looked like the only one realizing I was winning big time?) allied and befriended me. Got many a good deal out of that.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Super helpful. Four (!!!) scientific city states may be a bit much. Was suzerain of 12 total at the end.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Certainly, can't do a proper science victory without! Got choral music and religious colonization, and later on stewardship and pagoda. I find that the religious approach is the most effective way for a quick science wins. But maybe there are even better ones?

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
1.) Holy sites first, campuses second.
2.) Keep up with culture, the ratio culture vs. science should be something like 3:5 I think. Maybe even more culture would be better.
3. All golden ages, all monumentality.
4.) Some war at the early game, ally and befriend as many as possible in the mid and late game.
5.) Grow wide (and large), but know when to stop (i overdid it with a few to many cities I think)
6.) Since you are going for a fast win: often chopping resources is better than improving them. I still struggle with this, because the slightly bigger yields look so appealing...
7.) Build all the right wonders: pyramids (!), artemis (optional, but nice), oracle (!), colosseum, kilwa (!), forbidden city, potala palace, oxford, ruhr... Somehow I always forget about Big Ben, must remind myself to build it next time...

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
All golden. If you accelerate fast enough, they get very easy, overshot the last one with over a 100 points...

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
None.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
My biggest surprise this game was how totally incompetent the AI was in fighting of barbarians at this difficulty. Spain got to zero army because of the barbarians invading their country, so I could just pick up their cities. Norway the same (they were still struggling nearing turn 200...), but because they had poor cities I decided to keep them as a scientific future ally (took them ages to research the civic though...), but could just have walked there and taken all their cities as well. England didn't give much of a fight either. Like taking candy from a baby... The city states were much better at fighting the barbs it seems.
Another one was almost accidentally wining a culture victory. Had to sell and give away all my great works to prevent that!
Faith buying builders to boost space projects was fun.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Certainly! It was a good setup to practice the faith into science strategy. And I always love seeing how others approach the same game on here, thanks GOTM team!

 

[Monthar]

Science victory turn 263, score 2414.

After taking out Norway, I did manage to get the last religion and the starting beliefs I wanted. Next I went after Spain and was planning to leave England alone, but they had a competing religion so I took over my entire land mass. Then I got distracted with building wonders and dams and other districts instead of focusing primarily on science and culture.

Edit: Adding some screen shots.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[Tarry]

Victory Turn 256
Score: 2369

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 10 in my main push, then another 5 occupying sites for resources (oil and coal and uranium and aluminium)
Captured a whole bunch of cities
3 from Norway,
1 from Spain (my scout encountered his lone settler coming down the west side aiming to settle in the same spot my settler was going for. One surprising war declaration later I had an extra settler.
7 from England - they had a filthy religion they were trying to spread to my cities, some sort of foreign heresy that I dealt with using Janissaries.
11 from Zulu in my later war - he was all up in my face all the time. Way too uppity for someone who I could declare a Colonial war upon. On an island all alone with loads of city states that I thought should be following me. I should have left him along and ignored him, I'm sure my victory would have been quicker, and the playtime certainly shorter. But he was so annoyingly irritating I felt I had to murder him.
3 from Maori - all of which were in horsehockey locations and all of which rebelled. Poor Maori had awful world position on a mostly desert string of islands in the south so tried to settle anywhere he could, and when he fell into a dark age his isolated cities joined mine.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
I went for faith initially to get a religion. My holy sites buildings would generate culture, hoping I could then mostly ignore cultural buildings thereafter. I was aiming to get monumentality golden ages and use the faith to buy my builders and settlers.
Once I had a religion and the ability to build campus' I focused on getting the Janissaries.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
A pair of scouts initially to try discover CS before AI opponents, then into warriors/slingers then to archers-swordsmen.I ignored horses. building them only for the Era score.
Took the battle to Norway first and gave him a good kicking, I missed his settler and he got to establish a decent new capital - I made a total hash of attacking him and lost way more units that I should have. He successfully suzed the nearby military city states and it all got very messy.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
As soon as I was able I built the Janissary and upgraded my few warriors into them. Faith built a bunch - they are so cheep to buy it's awesome.
The boat was pretty good, got some good raiding in on my assault of Zulu later on.
The governor rocked making my bombards totally awesome crushing walls in 1-2 turns.
The bazarr was awesome, producing money, and amenities to keep my overly large empire happy

- What was your most useful unit?
Janissaries were awesome as corps and armies, they did all the work conquering everything.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Not really. I murdered everyone I met early on. I did some alliances later, mostly with Mali to get good international trading when I was in democracy.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
yes they were great.
Akkad made attacking cities so easy, I almost conquered it early on, but am glad I didn't.
Planque was an isolated city cut off in the mountains, so funny. Except that all my enemies suzed it and the backstabbing blues suddenly caused me troubles.
Granada was another CS that everyone wanted while fighting me.
Valetta was great for building all my cities - I love faith buying city centre stuff

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Bigtime. Religion was the springboard for my economy. Though I think I relied on it too much for culture, I should have built a couple more cultural sites, I was lagging and didn't get to democracy and build the Royal Society until after I had launched satellites.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Religion -> Science. Build a big empire.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Golden all the way. Monumentality all the way to faith buy settlers/workers until I got Heartbeat of Steam in industrial age.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
None. Golden age in combination with the +4 for being Ottomans was awesome.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Screwing up bringing my units piecemeal into the grinder that was Norway's new capital. He kept popping out the right counter units and I felt like I couldn't back off. Stupid I know.
Khmer was surprisingly strong, wiping out Egypt. Later on he tried a faith invasion of old-Zulu-Land. My swiftly bought Apostals sailed across from my main homeland and soon saw him off - but that took ages of real time to play out.
Barbarians: I didn't see a single one in renaissance, but in Industrial era, they spawned constantly. Every 2-3 turns, especially in the north above old England-Land

- Did you enjoy your game?
very much so.
So close to getting my first sub 250 science victory. Had I ignored Zulu I'm sure it would have been, I will probably replay it again to try improve and be disciplined.

 

[Chrumo]

SV 227 Score 2514

Most prominent mistakes:
-Not picking Divine Spark - I regretted it every single turn
-Getting too little culture - getting Globalisation quickly when you have 12 suzerein CCs is key
-Failed to get 250/mountain and 500/natural great scientists, because of unlucky GP points spread - that's 3250 science down the drain.

However I managed to get the most productive city I have ever created (482.4 production!) :

Spoiler Istambul production and my cities :

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I settled about 10 cities, captured a lot in the late game.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
No particular focus on research. As for policies, Early Empire and Feudalism early on, and later I rushed Communism and Globalisation
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I have started with a couple warriors, but could not find any opponents quickly (very unlucky scouting), so I decided I have to pursue settling cities and a peaceful SV - so no units at all until I got Bombers.
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Not a single one. The AI cities were crappy and really not worth capturing, so I just played peacefuly.
- What was your most useful unit?
Bombers, as usual. They allowed me to efortlessly capture 1 or 2 cities every turn after getting Adv. Flight.
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Extremely useful - that is the only reason why I have not gone to war at all until late game. I sold so much favour and so many resources that I had +150GPT from trades for most of the game.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
I estimate that Diplomatic Favour that I sold to AI earned me about 10 000 gold throughout the game. So pretty helpful. No civs contested my CCs.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
I got one, and it was a pretty neat addition as I went for Work Ethic (+1% prod/follower). The biggest mistake was not getting Divine Spark as a pantheon, I think that could have costed me about 5-10 turns total.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Played peacefuly. I delayed campuses, and rushed Commercial Hubs for domestic trade routes. It worked out OK, but I should have invested way more into Culture - with so many CSs, getting Globalisation quickly is key to SV.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
All golden, there was no chance of getting dark ages. I had hundreds of era score more than required.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
None at all.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
As I've said, somehow I failed to scout properly, and I had to abandon my dreams of warrior conquest. Later on, their cities were just not worth the hussle. Switched into peaceful SV, which made my UU/UB completely useless.
- Did you enjoy your game?
Of course it was super fun, but I think the game was just a bit too easy, not because of the difficulty level but mainly because the starting area was so ridiculously strong. Would love to see harsher starts

 

[Thorak]

Science Victory Turn 194 (according to Hall of fame). Score 1881.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I settled 4 initial cities. Captured all city states and AI cities on my own continent except the science state. Captured most of Zulu cities and liberated the 2 science city states on his continent. Exterminated Mali. I guess I conquered some more cities as well which I might have forgotten.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Prioritized writing at first and military sciences. Then things that made my cities grow. Political phisolophy and recorded history was an early prioritization for civics.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I started conquering city states with militias and archers. As soon as I got my hands on iron I upgraded them to swordsman. Once I got Janisaries I could conquer AI cities at lightning speed however.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
I didn't use the unique ship at all, I didn't even build it. The Janissary however, holy crap these are very powerful. I sometimes accidentally took AI cities without having time to decently pillage them. The unique building is a nice bonus and helped me keep my cities happy.

- What was your most useful unit?
Janissary and builders.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
In the early stages I used diplomacy to trade for gold. However, soon everyone started denouncing me. But in a peace deal, the AI is still willing to trade away their gold for luxury and strategic resources. I also managed to get an alliance with the Khmer early on to speed up the diplomatic service civic which helped me get enlightment a few turns earlier..

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
All four science city states helped me a lot. Mali actually suzerained one of the science city states with 9 envoys which is why I terminated the evil Mali!

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Not really. I usually always play on deity and at that difficulty can't really rely on a religion. I could possibly have used a religion in this game but never really thought about it. I used faith a lot though, mostly to buy Janissaries and builders. Got a lot of faith from pillaging.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
My strategy was to capture as many cities as quickly as possible and spam campuses in all of them.

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

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Ottomans has a great ability to neglect this with the +4 loyalty for captured cities. I still had a revolt which was very annoying as it spawned 2 infantries which was stronger than the Janissaries I had at the time. I never developed the unique governoer enough to help with hte issue, but I captured cities rather quickly.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I had 1 very big positive surprise. For some reason the AI who was leading in great scientist points stopped right before he got Hypatia. So I actually managed to get Hypatia even though I shouldn't have gotten it. This was very wierd.
Another surprise was that the religious settlements was already taken which likely slowed me down a few turns.
The final surprise I had was that I saw for the first time barbarians capture a city. I had brought the health of the city down very low and then 2 swordsman captured the city and razed it to the ground. Never seen that before.

- Did you enjoy your game?
I always enjoy science games as I like that you can't go all out on military or all out on city building, you need to find a very delicate balance to boost both. The position of Palenque was very funny. This is the first science game I finish on standard speed, I only finished it on online speed before. It is also the first non-deity science game I finish.

 

[tobols]

Turn 226 SV, score 1672

Early game, built two armies, one went south and conquered norway and all southern CS, the other north and took spain, england and all northern CS. Only real military resistance came from barbarians who were quite a pain after wiping out the other civs and before covering the continent with cities or units.

Had fire goddess pantheon, which together with a lot of pillaging funded my expansion during 3 consecutive golden ages with monumentality. Last golden age I had heartbeat of steam.

Conquered and settled a lot of cities - about 30 or so. After conquering my continent I played peacefully, so when later meeting the other civs they knew nothing about how I wiped out 3 civilizations. Hence I had decent relations with all of them.

Found 4 science CS, which was very useful togehter with kilwa. Apart from that I built oxford, potato palace and ruhr. My cities spammed Campuses and CH/Harbors, with a couple of industrial zones here and there.

I probably could have ended much earlier if I had planned better ahead. As things turned out, when I had finished research on the technology for exoplanet launch, I had just finished building my first spaceport. But you learn I guess.

Was fun regardless!

 

[FJC]

Turn 295 victory, need to look up score after work!

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 7, conquered 2 from Spain and 8 from Norway.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Holy Sites for a religion, then into campuses and industrial zones. Then focused on heading towards Spaceports.
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Got a few Janissary's as I didn't have access to Iron I promoted warriors straight into these. Both Spain and Norway had several cities on the coast so i had built a few galleys and 1 of the Barbary Corsairs
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Used both, Janissary's were very effective.
- What was your most useful unit?
Janissary disposed of Spain and Norway quickly.
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I didnt really use it at all.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Yes they were, I had put envoys into most the the military ones around me as well as Palenque. Probably should have saved a few envoys for when i discovered the other science CS as it took me a while to get 6 into each.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
Picked up choral music for the first time, I thought it would help boost my culture without needing to many TS.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
My plan developed on the run, originally focused on getting myself with 6 established cities, upon realising how weak Spain and Norway were I decided to rush them with Janissary's. Once i conquered both I turtled again and focused on buildings districts. Probably built too many harbours, as they were the first district built in each of my coastal cities.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
No dark Ages, I had 2 normal ages in the mid to late game. Rest were Golden.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
I was able to steamroll both civs quickly so loyalty was never an issue.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Been a while since I have played on King and it surprised me how poorly the AI was doing. Spain was crippled by barbs. England were being hassled by barbs the entire game. Looking back I could have been aggressive earlier to take advantage of this.
- Did you enjoy your game?
Probably enjoyed it a little too much, leading to a lot of sub-optimal play. Learned a lot though through this and the last GOTM. Might even give this a second attempt using some of the strategies mentioned above.

 

[DougBSA]

SV on Turn 305.
Explored early and spammed Settlers around the East/West mountain range and a bit to the South. Went south with archers and conquered Norway which had only built 2 cities. Kept building settlers around the rest of southern continent. then went north and took Spain and english to the NE with crossbows to secure and build out continent. Not the fastest, but a very fun game (although a bit plodding once space projects got going), eventually built 11 cities concentrating on science and commerce. built Ruhr valley in Capital along with govt Plaza and spaceport. Set up many trade trades routes to city to speed production and had 750 gpt to buy many workers to use with royal Society.

 

[isopaha]

SV244. Conquered Norway and did quite a bit of settling myself. Quite a standard science game.

 

[kcd_swede]

SV t286 (1830AD) score 1880

Under 300t is OK, but I was hoping for better. I waited too long to take Spain, thinking that alliance would be worthwhile, but it wasnt. Slow to expand because I rushed Norway. Just rolled through The rest of the continent, then took Maori and Spain because I could. Lots of wasted time, but I had fun at least.

 

[Gaonac'h]

SV turn 176

Tried something fresh this time and went for a religion since the nerf on Great writers.

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
I wiped out Norway, Spain, England, Zulu and Maori, in this order. Mostly because I was scared of a CV. Only the war against Zulu felt necessary to secure the island were I was planning my spaceports cities.
Most of my "good" cities were settled by me.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Theocracy and then Democracy. Tried to push culture more than science.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
6 archers/3 warriors to deal with barbs and 7 knights for conquest. And a lot of other units for eurekas/quests.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Barbary corsair was useful to kill Maori coastal cities.
Didn't make any use of the Janissaries beside dealing with barbarians.
Built 2 Grand bazaar, for eureka and Big ben.

- What was your most useful unit?
Builders!

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I was friend with Spain in the Classical era until I got scared of a potential CV and decided to clear my landmass.
Didn't really care for diplomacy with the other continent since they were hating on me, I just traded my books to them after hitting globalization.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
I was hoping to make a good use of Vilnius but it's tricky on lower difficulty, I should have just conquered it.
Granada's improvements were really helpful in the early game.
Had to liberate Babylon from Egypt with a caravel.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
Yes a pretty big part of my plan was reliying on religion to push culture.
You can also use the +4 card against others religions at Theocracy to help conquest.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Getting a Great prophet (Choral music/Religious colonization/Church property) and focus on culture to get a t4 governement as fast a possible for Royal society.
Bought 2 spaceports/2 encampements with Reyna and bough barrack, armory and military academy with golds, kept my faith mostly for builders in Liang city.
Was planning on getting Amundsen-Scott by faith buying a campus in the tundra but after globalization I was going too fast in the tech tree so I had to switch magnus to the spaceport city before he etablish in the Amundsen one and wasn't able to finish it.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Golden all game long. (Monumentality)

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Not at all, loyalty is no problem to Ottomans.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Ngzagarmu was harder to kill than Norway had to bait their archers to be able to take the city.
The AI couldn't handle barbarians, Spain only had 1 city by turn 100....
Plenty of very good locations to settle and a lof of +3campus, made cities and districts planning pretty interesting.
4 blue city state and 4 white one was also a big surprise.
On the other side, Natural disasters were pretty annoying.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, Thank you!

 

[arthur486]

SV @ Turn 198
This is my first science victory in GS, and the fastest one yet (previous was T209 in 6otM49, and it wasn't even Gathering Storm!)

• Took the volcanic pantheon as I settled 2nd city next to Vesuvius (did not know that you can lose population at distance 2 from the volcano...)
• Took out Akkad, Norway, Vilnius, La Venta, Cahokia, England, Spain and Granada in roughly this order.
• Crossed the seas and pillaged Mali and the Zulu. It was the first time I did that and turned out VERY useful.
• Built the Colosseum, Kilwa and timed Oxford to get late-game techs. Was also my first game into the future, as I always won beforehand.
• I still coordinate badly during the final third of the game, as I did not have an encampment for the Integrated Space Cell bonus, did not have the Royal Society and the 2nd spaceport was rushed to build some supporting projects. Also my culture game is still bad, so I lagged in getting the required civics.

Very interesting map and game, thank you 6otM team!

 

[leif erikson]

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