6otM81 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the 6otM81 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 cities did you take with military?
- 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.

 

[whacker]

SV t181/182


- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 6, captured a lot. In the end i killed all AI except Alexander and Korea. Took some cities from Korea though, Alexander was hard to reach with ships.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Sailing to scout with 2 builders and 3 galleys. Then writing for two early campus. I then more or less beelined for frigates. Afterwards battleships into rocketry into everything else. Civic wise early foreign trade fo a trader and 100% ship card. Then Political Philisophy and the harbor adjacency card. Mercenaries to upgrade frigattes, nothing special after that.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
I bought a slinger and a spearman for the eurekas and because i had several barb horsemen spawning southwest of Kyoto which threatened my campus. 3 galleys to scout, 8 quadriremes-frigates-battleships to conquer the map. I bought 2 catapults, 2 archers and upgraded them for eurekas, Before musketman i built 4-5 warriors and upgraded them into muscets to conquer inland cities.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Had no iron for Samurai and did not need them later on. Built a couple of UB. I dont think Japanes UU/UB are particularly useful, which is a shame.

- What was your most useful unit?
Frigates.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
I was very friendly towards everybody until i started conquering. Friendship with everybody excepts Alexander and Korea, alliance with Poland. I sold my diplomatic favour to Canada because i think the world congress is pretty much useless in most cases. Also sold horses and luxury resources to everybody.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Bologna and Geneva were very useful, had to fight over Bologna with China in the early/midgame. Because i scouted like a madman with monumentality builders i found every city state except Bueno Aires very early on. (When i saw those borders i was hoping so badly for Auckland lol ) Kumasi was very usful in the midgame, although i would have preferred Nan Madol. The other city states were not very useful though. I built a couple of Maoi, but i dont think it mattered much.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
No, but i found an early relic and went for God of the Sea pantheon.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Initially i wanted to go for ancestral hall and chop in some cities, but the start was really poor. So i decided to only build one canal city and buy the remaining settlers in the monumentality golden age. Early harbors/lightouses to get some infractructure going with domestic trade routes and later free inquiery. It is a very powerful change towards Coastal citites that the +30% production card now affects harbors. Afterwards i went on a killing spree to get enough cities.

- How many cities did you take with military?
Did not count, a lot.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
All golden. Monumentality-Free Inquiery-Monumentality-Heartbeat of Steam. I planned that from the beginning and tried hard to get enough era score.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Not much issues because i was conquering too fast. I built the casa for more governours though.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Except for Bologna and Geneva it was a very poor map for a science victory. Bad city states and very few chops made it pretty hard. I was really surprised how good the AI has become at placing districts, most of them were really good. I dealt with it by conquering them

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, i had a blast! This was my first full game in the current patch and i really like the way the game has developed. Japan is also very intersting to play, i think this only was my 2. victory with them since one of the earliest GOTMs in Vanilla (RV). I have to say that i underestimated them.
As always, thanks a a lot for preparing these GOTMs, they are one of the reasons i always kept enyoing to play civ.

 

[whacker]

Could not find the screenshot when i made the last post, so here it is. It shows my city layout for the 5 cities+capital that i founded myself.

 

[Monthar]

Science Victory turn 297 score 1595. I avoided war for as long as possible. Then Alex attacked an ally so I wiped him out.

Any win on deity is great for me, but getting this in under 300 turns was awesome.

 

[isopaha]

SV 299. Stayed completely peaceful the whole game. Settled 2 tundra cities, first one for iron and second one for oil (and coal). However, the iron city was razed by barbarians, which lead to me not building a single samurai, as I had already advanced to infantry at the time when I resettled it. All in all AI's showed no military threat the whole game, barbarians annoyed me a bit. Most useful unit probably Privateer armada, which I got through several Admirals.

11 total cities, though the last one in the very end just to get some extra aluminium. Canada was a useful ally for trade routes most of the game. Japan is quite a nice overall-civ.

 

[TomeTraveler]

SV 276 Score 1169

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
17, all settled.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Upper half mostly as far as Rocketry, though made some priority for techs such as Bronze Working, Engineering, and Military Engineering.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
As small an army as I could get away with, certainly the smallest I've ever had on Deity. 3 galleys that turned into caravels and then one upgraded to ironclad for the Eureka, 2 quadriremes upgraded to Frigates, nothing else for Navy.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
Had intended to build a few samurais but by the time I was ready they'd been made obsolete, never even got the Era score for building one.

- What was your most useful unit?
I'd settled a city quite a ways north, for the only iron accessible to me, and to create a chokepoint if Alexander came after me. There was a barbarian camp west of the mountains north of Jerusalem and they sent an ever-increasing force after my city that I kept barely fighting off with the two or three units I had up there but I lacked the firepower to go on the offensive and remove the barbarian camp, so eventually they were sending bombards, musketeers, and field cannon after me. So the most valuable unit would have to be the crossbowman I finally upgraded to field cannon and used (along with a couple of musketeers and a pikeman) to finally raze that camp.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Exceedingly. I made friends with John Curtin and Qin Shi Huang right off and let them fight each other, and kept mostly friendly with everyone else in addition, having alliances with everyone but my (eventual) friend Alexander and my enemy, Jadwiga. International trade routes with Wisselbanken are like a free win card.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Kept suzerainty of the CSs I wanted with very little trouble, holding Bologna, Geneva, Zanzibar, Buenos Aires, and Kumasi most of the game and never lost them more than a turn's worth after gaining them. I would have like Valletta for something to do with my abysmal faith (finally built my first holy site in the Atomic Era!) but Jadwiga had 7 envoys early on and by the time I had enough built up to counter, I didn't really care whether I had Valletta or not anymore.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
None at all, for me.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Getting my first settler to the spot west of the mountain near the Great Barrier reef, to keep from falling too far behind in science until I could begin to build enough to catch up. Campuses and money, lots of money. Did a slight forward-settling of John Curtin at an isthmus with a few mountains west of Australia, as a chokepoint in case of war. Australia was already my friend and at war with China, which kept us friendly despite the move.

- How many cities did you take with military?
0.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
One dark age, Renaissance. Heroic Industrial, and everything beyond, Golden.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
During the dark age I needed a governor in Tokyo (my isthmus chokepoint near Australia) when I would rather have had Magnus elsewhere, no other problems.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
The general lack of competition from the AI, at least against me. Jadwiga was at war with everyone else for much of the game (including a 10-turn war with me when an alliance kicked in) but nobody directly opposed me.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Indeed! I generally don't worry overly about fast wins but I'd told myself before beginning that I'll try to conquer enough to achieve one. Then I turned out to have so much room to expand, and my opponents were so passive, that I went ahead and played peaceful anyhow.

 

[yavor.makc]

turn 226

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
6 settled , and additional 2 from captured settles. Captured almost all

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Sailing, go to Caravels, Niter and Frigates. After strict way to a Space Port. Politics - No any strategic, just to take envoys.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Warriors => Muskets man. Quadriremes => Frigates, Galleys => Caravels => Ironclads

- What was your most useful unit?
Naval

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
For fist time sold everything (most expensive was diplomatic favor)

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
yes. science CS and Kabul

- Did religion play a role in your game?
No. Just faith

- How many cities did you take with military?
All cities except CS and Alexander

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

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, it was a good game

 

[Bangau]

T237 SV

't Was a fun game, even though I had just recently done a Japan game. Went CV that time, so nice to compare the two. Japan's adjacency bonuses do trigger the simcity player in me, so didn't play all for efficiency.

Spoiler screenshot :

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled about 15 or so, captured about 20.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Religion first, than science and culture. A few needed for naval warring in between.

- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
A combination of naval and light cavalry. Waited until frigates to declare war, but had all the boats ready before that and the money to upgrade everything at once.

- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
I built only one, it was too slow to keep up with the boats and cavalry, so ended up only doing a few battles.

- What was your most useful unit?
The frigate for sure.

- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Definitely, I always make sure to make a lot of friends and a few right enemies if I want to war later on. Went perfectly here, while Australia and China were warring each other all game long I build up my cities and my army. Then I swooped in and took over their lands.

- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Always. Don't remember which ones I used in this game the most though.

- Did religion play a role in your game?
I build two early HS and got the religious belief that lets you buy campus and TS building with faith. Bought me at least a dozen of those later on in the game. Noone was competing for religion (oddly, they almost always do), so my religion was in almost all my cities, even the ones I captured.

- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
1.) Early religion, later use that faith for settlers and science/culture buildings.
2.) Start peacefully, prepare for (mostly naval) war.
3.) Take over my neighbours while building up my science and culture.
4.) Harbors everywhere giving me lots of trade routes for money and (with democracy) huge production in my main 'space city'.
5.) Get the right GP. I got the ones giving boosts to space projects: in the end my projects in 'space city' took exactly one (1) turn.
6.) Bought two spaceports with Reyna, build one regularly in a third city while 'space city' was doing the first few project.
7.) In the end city projects for GE and GS in most cities, builder spam in the cities close to the three spaceports.

- How many cities did you take with military?
About 20. I only did the ones of my chosen enemies that were near the shore.

- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Iirc all golden but one... Not sure though.

- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
Not an issue this game.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Almost no religious combat. I rarely see that, didn't even have to build apostles to defend my faith.
With all the coast there was a little less room for Japan to get amazing district areas with everything being +6 and greater, as they can easily do. The beginning was a bit slower than I expected, took a while to get the ball rolling towards victory.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Very much, and always fun to read how others have played it on here. Thanks again!

 

[DanQuayle]

SV T174

Early game
I got a governor title from a tribal village. I picked Amani and thus easily secured a Classical golden age.
Settled 7 cities
I built a lot of galleys for exploration
Warlord's Throne in GPlaza

Pantheon
Religious settlements, but I hesitated picking God of the Sea which might have been a better choice long term

Religion
Choral Music

Golden Ages:
Monumentality, Monumentality, Monumentality

Wonders
Only hard built the Pyramids and Oracle (later then usual)
I conquered Kilwa Kisiwani from Canada
I was hoping to find better land to chop Big Ben, but not alas!

City-states
I met two faith city-states early on, I was banking on finding at least a third one on the map.
Zanzibar and Buenos Aires helped to provide a lot of amenity for conquest.
Only got suzerainty of Rapa Nui late in the game.

World Congress
1st congress: passed +5CS to melee units, my caravels were now at 69CS with a Great Admiral
2nd congress: banned GW points (annoying!), but passed 100% production to campus (great!)

Wars
Many of the conquered cities had already campi built in them which was helpful (Australia, China, France, Korea).
The way the AI sets up its cities (with districts usually clumped up) makes them good cities for conquest by Japan with the Meiji Restoration ability.

Australia and China were already at war with each other when I met them. China had a very low military score. Took China down with galleys and then some Australian cities until Curtin got walls.
France taken down with Caravels (no walls).
The rest with Frigates and Caravels.
I dealt with inland cities by levying units from city-states.
Some inland cities had high population which was annoying from a loyalty perspective.

Endgame
During about the last 30 turns, I was discovering 1 tech per turn.
I cranked 1 builder per turn for all space projects
3 spaceports bought with faith

Map script
Lots of crabs for harvesting gold
Lots of high appeal places for neighborhoods and public transport
Lots of tribal villages laying around for potential eurekas late game (got 1 or 2 useful ones this way)
Not a lot of woods/resources to chop or harvest

Highlight of the game
Just after I killed Korea after being at war the whole game and now have 30+ cities, Alex's agenda triggers and he asks me how I intend to grow my empire if I am not at war...
Since he is the only other player left, I guess he subconsciously wants me to attack him!

 

[kcd_swede]

SV T294 1846AD, score 1847
Had to avoid war early because Australia had tough cities to reach and well defended with bunches of encampments and walls. I got free settler from pantheon because I was first to meet Jerusalem (they met me is probably more accurate) and I popped a relic from my first hut. Had already built my first settler, thanks to 2 builders received from huts. More luck than I expect on this level, but I'm NOT complaining.

I also saw navy as the way to go for this map, but lack of iron meant nothing really useful until battleships. I started by taking out the 2 citystaes east of Australia, then went back and took Oz as they depleted their military taking out China. Anyhow took forever to bombard their defenses. Then things got easy and I took Korea to avoid competition for space race, as well as get some sweet pillage. Very happy to get under 300 turns on Deity SV!
Thanks for the game!

 

[HiRezAudio]

First up, I must confess that I accidentally got a Culture Victory instead of the Science Victory, and was not sure how to save the final win so attached the last autosave created by the game (no reloads were done, just took a single break in play with a sleep between sessions) - I hope this is okay.
It was quite a late game win too - I got stalled in early expansion but by the time I ran out of room I was at close to Parity with the AI on both Science & Culture so went for the 2-track approach, Korea being what they are and all that although it must be said in the end my closest Science opponent was Alexander at one point before he suffered some form of calamity.
I avoided war all game through apart from some early scraps in the Ancient era, and was left alone by keeping up the Diplomatic effort & making sure nobody had any cause to hate me. It saved me a fortune in Army maintenance too.

 

[leif erikson]

First up, I must confess that I accidentally got a Culture Victory instead of the Science Victory, and was not sure how to save the final win so attached the last autosave created by the game (no reloads were done, just took a single break in play with a sleep between sessions) - I hope this is okay.

No problem, everything sounds fine.

 

[DonChipotle]

SV 255

Settled on Wine
Patheon: Fertility Rites. I think this was a big mistake. There wasn't much for the builder to improve at that point in the game. I think God of the Sea would have been better.
Did not found a religion. Completely ignored faith. Not sure if I should have focused on it.
Settled 8 main cities, plus one up in the snow to get the strategic resources.
Built a couple galleys and upgraded to caravels because barbarian caravels were showing up and preventing me from creating sea trade routes, costing me early gold.
Didn't build any samurai. Built lots of electronics factories but couldn't really tell how much it was helping.
Wonders: just Oxford. Mausoleum might have been nice but couldn't find a way to fit it in. Also Ruhr would have really helped but I didn't plan a location for it and so couldn't build it.
City states
Mistake: Decided to use Reyna to buy the Spaceport, but mismanaged governor titles and was one short. Had to wait 10 turns to get it after Rocketry was done.
Also, getting to Communism was key. I wasn't sure if I should have gone for Opera earlier to plug in Grand Opera and get there a little sooner.
Completely peaceful game. (Except for when Poland declared on Korea and I had a military alliance so I ended up in a bloodless war for 10 turns before white peace).

I did not really have a strategy for the golden ages. I just chose hearbeat of steam for the extra production.

Rocketry: T196 Satellites: T217 Moon: T225 Mars: 230 Exo: 240 Win: 255

Surprises:
Something odd happened where the Terrestrial Laser station ran out of power a couple times. I don't really get why this happened. I think it cost me a few turns. I switched to Nuclear power which seemed to help somewhat. I need to understand the power mechanic better. I usually win way faster after getting the exoplanet expedition launched.

Had fun, still learning. Saw some ways I could have saved at least 15 turns.

 

[Fivethumbs]

SV 235

Lucky to stumble upon Jerusalem for quick pantheon (free settler).
Stole one settler with a scout from Australia earlish as well.
Australia rolled over China and pumped 100+ science already by turn ~40ish (if remember correctly) - never seen AI to have this much science this early yet. However Australia had no resources at all (no horses, iron, niter), so rushed 3 x samurai + SiegeTower + levied swordsmen from science CS, and it was enough to conquer whole Australia.
Peaceful afterwards & allied all but one civ.
This time saved enough gold to instant-buy spaceport right after rocketry research (~t165), but it took time to research the rest & build the projects.
Hostile spies managed to pillage both the industry zone & spaceport at one point (rolleyes).

 

[arthur486]

SV @ Turn 234

- How many cities did you settle, or capture?
Settled 10 and captured another 15 total.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Went for Rocketry, but did not follow any particular strategy.
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change?
Started with Heavy Chariots, ended with Modern Armor. Also created a few ships, some of which were created using GA points.
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?
No. Samurais came in too late, and the UB bonus was underwhelming.
- What was your most useful unit?
I had a Knight unit kill 12 enemies, so I guess it was that (just not to say Builders again...)
- Was diplomacy useful? How?
Sold a lot of diplo favour to Canada, peddled all luxuries and resources I could.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?
Yes they were, and I tried to use all of them, especially the scientific and culture ones.
- Did religion play a role in your game?
No.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?
Prepared Reyna and 7200 gold and bought my single Spaceport in the capital and build everything there. Had about 120 production there together with ~1000 science by the end. Played by the ear and was nowhere aggressive enough.
- How many cities did you take with military?
Took out Australia and China, and left France with a single city. Conquered and kept 15 cities.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?
Had a normal classical age followed by Golden Ages (Free Inquiry and Heartbeat of Steam).
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?
By the time I really started conquering I was in a GA so it did not matter much.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, thank you 6otM team!

 

[nufro]

T 270 SV
Friends with Canada, conquered everyone else.

 

[Vlad Dracula]

Lost 349/350 to Australia who won an SV.
How many cities did you settle, or capture? 11 settled,one captured,two flipped.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Mostly things with eureka's deity is way above my level.
- What did you build for an Army and Navy and how did it change? A few warriors and slingers and a galley which I upgraded when possible.I built the chapel tobuy units with faith and added some heavy cavalry one light and a few rocket arty at the end.
- Did you use your UU/UB? Were they useful?I did not.
- What was your most useful unit?The death robot I got during a heroic age.
- Was diplomacy useful? How?Yes for the longest time I stayed at peace.
- Were City-States helpful? Did any other civ give you a hard time about city-states?I had Geneva Bologna and Jerusalem for most of the game.Nobody really bothered me.
- Did religion play a role in your game?I got one and tried to use it to generate science.
- What was your strategy, how did you gain your Science VC?I just played catch up the entire game.
- How many cities did you take with military?Just one.
- How many Dark Ages and/or Golden Ages did you have? Did you have a strategy?Several normal followed by several dark.Then a heroic during the information age.Then golden for the future age.
- What effect did Loyalty have on your settling or conquering? How did you mitigate its effects?Australia built one near me so I put several cities near it and flipped it the turn before Iost.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?I was allied with Alex most of the game.I made him promise to quit converting my cities.He broke the promise.Since he was weaker than me I denounced him and declared a holy war.We were still friends when I denounced which I assume was the betrayal trigger.After taking one city he put two scenarios into a special session one for the city and one for "betrayal".Betrayal passed and Poland,Canada,and Australia joined the war on his side.I fought them all off for 40 turns before losing the SV.I managed to get all the way to landing my Mars colony before losing.
- Did you enjoy your game?Yep.I did much better than I thought I would.

 

[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.

 

[Tesuji]

SV turn 346.

I love these GotM but I rarely have the time to finish one. Now, cooped up at home, I gave this one a go. I had a blast, with no real expectation to win at Deity. So while slow, I'll take the win.

I settled 9 total cities. 7 fairly early, one late to get to the oil at the North and one filler very late in the game to avoid an AI sneaking in a settler.

I didn't manage to get a religion. As pantheon I chose Divine Spark as I figured it might come in handy for Great Scientists and Great Engineers.

My 3rd city was SE of the great barrier reef to take advantage of the science. And it seemed a good way to close off the land together with Bologna. I focused on becoming Suzerain of Bologna, both because of the science bonuses and to dissuade Curtis from becoming aggressive. The area between Bologna and all the way North seemed sufficient for a science victory. So almost all the game was peaceful. Only when I was well under way with the Space Race did Alex suddenly declare war. But it was a very half-hearted attempt, so nothing to be concerned about.

At some point I got gifted a GDR. I used it to free Zanzibar that Alex had captured and set it free. And then I went on to capture a few more of Alex's cities with the GDR, it was pretty much unstoppable. I didn't need it though, it was more playing around.

Australia was way ahead in science most of the game, so I didn't think I was going to win. But I just kept prioritizing science buildings and at some point managed to get Oxford. Followed by a Golden Age and the tables started turning slowly. By the time I fell into the following Dark Age I still had a long way to go, but by that time a SV looked very likely.

I didn't prioritize any culture and was way, way behind in Civics.

I was a bit taken aback by the fact that the steps to a SV seems to have changed quite a bit. I thought I had researched everything, only to find new ones required for SV appear. I must not have played for SV for a while. I had stopped extending my research alliance because I thought I had researched everything I needed.

There are other aspects of the game that were new to me and which seemed to work strangely. Oil for example. It seems no problem to run a deficit forever. And some of the builder improvements don't work as advertised. Offshore Windfarms for example promise +1 food, +3 production and +1 gold (or something like that) where in reality it only gave +1 production.

I also kept getting reports of tiles being pillaged with no barbarians in sight, late in the game.

All in all I had a blast though. And learned a lot on the way. Makes me feel Deity isn't what it used to be.

 

[kcd_swede]

"I also kept getting reports of tiles being pillaged with no barbarians in sight, late in the game."

Perhaps it is coastal raids. Maybe even by invisible units such as submarines.