6otM95 After Action Report

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM95 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.

- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?
- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why?
- How were the Barbarians?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations 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.

 

[Minou]

Sadly resigned. I thought this might be a fun one to try for a quick win with Persia's extra movement and not needing Cartography but I got crippled by poor planning and barbarians.

Settled in place and worked the nice 3f/3s tile, starting with a Scout to help find the AIs and then Builder, Holy Site. I lucked out in that I teched Astrology before AH and so my Holy Site base ended up on top of Horses and they were hooked up for free. With another Horse nearby and the natural wonder speeding science, I though some 6 move Horsemen could really contribute to a hybrid conquest/religion game. So, I grabbed Religious Settlements and settled near the second Horse with the wonder tiles also available to boost faith and science.

I was having pretty rotten luck exploring as my starting Warrior was killed by barbs, trapped on a peninsula by Warriors and Archers with no escape even with 4 movement. Eventually my Scout I found Lisbon and got Suzerain with Amani, but this did not reveal any new AIs. Meanwhile, barb Horsemen were pouring in like crazy and pillaging. In the end I ran Prayers and spent about 200f to ensure I got a GP on T49.

My progress towards a Golden Age was shaky since I only met Australia and found three huts (XP, BW boost, 40g), which forced me to put a big dent in my strategy by using my Great Prophet on T50 ((took Work Ethic and Missionary Zeal) to get exactly 25 Era Score and avoid missing out on Exodus of the Evangelists. This of course meant I could not wait until conquering Holy Sites to use the GP.....

I swapped Amani to Nan Mandol when I met them. Levying their army was the only bright spot of my game. I was able to use 6 Warriors to take one of Georgia's cities. My plan was to upgrade the Warriors to Immortals and wipe Georgia off the map entirely - for some reason I thought they did not require Iron! When I realized that was not true plan was shot, so I declared peace, let the city flip, razed it once it was a free city, and then about 20 turns later captured the Georgia capital. Having converted 3 cities with one Missionary and captured the capital I felt they were safely in the "converted" column.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be easy to roll over Australia and then keep my Horsemen moving to another target. However, Australia had several of their own Horsemen and got walls up early. I was able to take their capital but lost three Horsemen in the process. Even if they all survived, they would have taken ages to reach another target. I did not appreciate how much slower Horsemen would be on this map type I guess.

My missionaries converted a bunch of Indian, Kongo, and Mapuche cities. I think all three were converted at one point but all feel back out of conversion as AI missionaries swarmed the area.

A couple small frustrations began to add up, like loosing a missionary to a barb Horse Archer and misreading terrane so that my war on Cree, planned just to take out a Missionary and unconvert citizens in a cluster of cities failed because I was a movement point shy. When I noticed that somehow another AI had converted two of Georgia's cities to another religion and I had no missionaries remotely near, I called it quits on T87.

 

[Eyswein]

Sadly resigned.

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully it was enjoyable while it lasted and hope that you may give it another go for fun.

 

[Minou]

No worries, it was my own fault for messing up so many things. I appreciate all the work you guys put into GOTM and will certainly play again, just don't have much time IRL so I cut my losses to get on to another game.

 

[TheFinalChiTown]

T162RV

Spoiler :

- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? Wanted to get first two golden ages (monumentality then exodus). Build Mahabohdi Temple and Hagia Sophia. Pump faith with Earth Goddess. Use surprise wars to boost movement of religious units.
- What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points? My entire plan was blown up in the Ancient Era! I failed to get a golden age because I forgot to research Early Empire in time to build a Pairidaeza. Then Australia captured Susa (facepalm).
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Settled 6, including 1 with settler stolen from Georgia). Captured 12.
- What did you prioritize for technology/civics? Horseback riding, Castles, Gunpowder, Theology, Reformed Church.
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why? Earth goddess because of the high appeal start. Probably would've been better to take Religious Settlements so as to focus earlier on military instead of settlers.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why? Moksha was spitting out double promo apostles at the end.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs? I was despised by all!
- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states? Jerusalem & Fez were the most helpful. Tamar had a grip on quite a few.
- How were the Barbarians? They were tough at the beginning. My focus on them was the reason Australia was able to take a city from me.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it? Frustration: I wasn't expecting to be land-locked. Definitely set me back because I started with two scouts. I didn't even meet 3 city-states for Pol Phil. Elations: when I realized Earth Goddess had generated enough faith to flat-out buy me a classical Great General (750 faith!). Also when the Aussies built the Great Library. It was huge in helping me catch up in science.
- Did you enjoy your game? Not as much as usual, but mostly because I messed up the early game. I'm interested to see/learn how everyone did with this one.

 

[Eyswein]

Spoiler :

- What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points? My entire plan was blown up in the Ancient Era! I failed to get a golden age because I forgot to research Early Empire in time to build a Pairidaeza. Then Australia captured Susa (facepalm).

Wow. Phenomenally awesome recovery!

 

[Ceydezed]

Religious Victory turn 204

- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points? I guess i didn't have any major original plan for that, but mainly the usual: having a 4 promotion moksha and pumping apostles. I probably waited a bit too long to start sending the apostles through the water and many other religions were well established at that time, but I lost a lot of time fighting Australia.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all? It was very ironic that my only neighbor was the one that would benefit from my surprise wars declaration - but oh well i guess at the end he died. Always useful to benefit from extra movement though, especially for my religious units with missionary zeal.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? I settled 4 and captured all the ones from Australia, i believe 5.

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics? Holy sites, then cartography for science; religious governments for culture. Nothing crazy.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting? Started with Holy Sites, had good strategic ressources so went for horses and immortal to kill Australia, and finished them with frigates. Didn't bother with any wonders except Artemis because i put my capital on non-water tile, to work the good stone and have nice adjacencies, so i also "rushed" aqueducs.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why? Religious settlement was a bit a no brainer as i already had good faith generation and not a lot of space. For religious beliefs i got choral music, missionnary zeal, the belief that gives 2 faith per converted cities and the building that gives extra charge for missionnaries and apostles. I like missionnary zeal more and more, especially with Persia's ability and golden age dedication, it gives 7-8 movements apostles and missionnaries that ignore any features.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why? Oligarchy while at war, then classical republic and theocracy while i was purchasing apostles and converting others. I didn't change policy cards to much, to keep all the religious cards available.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why? Magnus for choping early game, then Moksha for the double promotions apostles.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs? Didn't have a lot of friends obviously, so nothing very exciting on this side.

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states? I didn't find any city states for a really long time, my first scouts got killed by different barbs and I had to fight Australia, so exploration was very tedious. Eventually got Jerusalem, but thats more or less it.

- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why? Started with a golden age and monumentality that was very helpful for buying traders or builders. Then dark age and heroic ages which was great for movement and extra charges of my religious units.

- How were the Barbarians? Very annoying, they killed my 2 scouts and my original warrior quite early. If Australia would have attacked me at this time i couldn't have defended.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it? Religious game without Yerevan are somewhat frustrating. The number of apostles with barbarian converting and gold generating abilities that i got was astounding.

- Did you enjoy your game? Yes, thanks!

 

[Drac00La]

Turn 108 RV
- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Initial plan was to try conquer + spread tactic - eliminate a couple of neighbors (but leave them a couple of cities to make use of LUA), then convert the rest. I wanted to settle 2-3 cities, churn out warriors + a couple of slingers (and upgrade them to archers) with agoge to start the conquest, while beelining iron working (after astrology) to finish off with immortals. SIPed and worked 3 faith tile to get pantheons ASAP - took religious settlements. After meeting Australia and seeing the capital 10 tiles away from mine, I knew that my initial plan must be correct - there was no space for peaceful expansion. Tundra to the north, desert swarmed by barbarians to the south (luckily they sieged Sydney for the rest of the game and never came close to my capital) and a lot of mountains. So I forward settled Australia (got immediately denounced) and started preparing for war.
The bad news came around 10 turns later. Tundra barbs mounted horses and came for Ray. At the same time John Curtain moved his warriors to my borders as well. I was sweating - the run could have ended right here! I got no army yet - got greedy with building holy cite after builder because it should have finished right after craftsmanship. Also started with monument in Ray - probably should have build warrior first for safety.

Spoiler Barbarians and Australians, oh my! :

Aaand they decided to fight each other, probably to claim the rights to capture Ray? It worked out perfectly for me - they mostly killed each other and I finished survivors, while getting some promotions and archery eureka.

Spoiler Didn't worked out that well for both of you, huh? :

I focused on more army, cleared the camp and went on to capture Canberra. The rest of war should have been easy - heal up, upgrade to immortals, finish off Melbourne and go for the next target. But suddenly John started spamming archers like crazy - he made one every 2-3 turns! He also build a horseman in Sydney, making all cities much tougher. And Melbourne is near the lake, which means I couldn't put it into siege. And because of the fact that immortals have reduce melee CS (compared to Swordsmen), taking the city was very hard - the siege lasted around 20 turns (had to retreat a couple of times to heal and lure archers from the city). Also my scout was killed by barbarians, so I couldn't find neither other civs nor city states.
So after finally capturing Melbourne and making peace with Australia, I had to clear large barbs army before moving onto next targets. And unfortunately the closes one was Tamar and she already had walls. So I decided to switch to standard religious game - used missionaries for scouting, promote Moksha to get double promoted apostles, build Mahabodhi and spammed Apostles for the win.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Civ UA helped a bit with culture - I was running internal trade routes all the game. Same for UI, culture and era score were useful.
As for Cyrus UA, I only got to use it for the last ~15 turns (maybe should have declared on Georgia, as I converted her last). The problem was that AI's were stacked and had a lot of units, so declaring war was risky - it's too easy to misstep and lose an apostle. And IMO loosing even one of them is way worth than having 2 extra MP considering they already have 6 and unhindered movement from missionary zeal. In the end it surely shaved a couple of turns, but wasn't that great as I initially thought it would be.
I am a bit disappointed with immortals. They felt like archers on steroids, but not powerful melee UU that wrecks havoc and captures everything in sight. Taking Melbourne with them was not a pleasant experience. Maybe I was using them wrong, that's the first time I was playing Cyrus so not much experience.
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
Settled 2, captured 2. The land nearby was weak, the land after Australia was okayish, but settling new cities wasn't worth it by the time I got there.
- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Technology - Mining, Astrology, Archery, Iron Working. Got a bit lost after that, went for Machinery but never upgraded archers (and didn't build Kilwa). Got Shipbuilding next, in the hindsight should have done it way earlier. Techs after that didn't really matter.
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
The main focus early game was army and holy cites. After that build shrines and temples, a couple of builders, harbor and 2 galleys for era score and envoys. The rest went into holy cite projects. The only wonder I've guild was Mahabodhi and it was amazing! I've got only 2 debater apostles, both from from it. The done most of the heavy lifting - India and Cree spammed missionaries like mad, which meant I've got a lot of 'free' pressure to them and their neighbors.
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Pantheon: Religious settlements. Earth goddess is not worth it in religious games, IMHO, because they are usually fast. Although I though about taking it for a bit, because most of the starting tiles were breathtaking from the start.
Religion: Work ethic, Missionary Zeal. Enhanced with Pilgrimage, not sure if it was worth. Pretty standard for fast RV. Work ethic was nice, especially after Scripture. Choral music would've probably been better, but it's hard to get nowadays. It usually goes first or second, and I was forth.
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Opened with Oligarchy for combat bonuses, switch to monarchy near the end, it didn't matter much. The key policy was Scripture for faith and Conscription (reduced unit maintenance) for gold. Swapped the rest depending on needs.
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Started with cultural Pingala to speed up PP and Theology, after that focus on Moksha to get to double promotions before apostles spam. Skipped Magnus this game as I wasn't going to chop much.
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
The only luxury I had access to was marble, so traded for all the luxuries I can with AIs. Also sold a lot of horses and iron. Didn't have any DF to sell, because of -5 penalty for having Australia's capital. Declared on John and later Gandhi (after eliminating his religion) to activate LUA.
- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?
Not that much. Got a bit of faith from Jerusalem, Fez helped to get to Printing right before I started my holy 'war'. If only there was a city state that gets culture when converting cities - I was still ~10 turns away from Reformed Church in the end.
- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why?
Both golden ages, both exodus. First exodus wasn't that useful, but a bit of faith is nice and speedy missionaries helped to find everyone and get enough era score for the next GA.
- How were the Barbarians?
They were ravaging during the first 50 turns and almost cost me the game (or should I say saved me the game? ), just look at screenshots above! After that they didn't bother me at all (also they tried to capture some of my missionaries but to no avail).
- Did you enjoy your game?
Sure, it was a fun game with lots of decisions. It looked easy after looking at starting screenshot, but turned out way harder than expected. Still I think it can be finished way faster, so looking forward to see finish times and strategies from more experienced players!

 

[gcampono]

Turn 132 RV

What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

Since I saw Australia near and a lot of barbarians I started to build units. Conquered Australia fairly quickly. Then I spent most of the time to build holy sites and its building, running projects and finding neighbors. I took the cheaper apostles belief. I was not really optimal in my decisions where to send my apostles. I mostly converted cities by charge and not much by killing other apostles. I was lucky with a hut giving me a relic.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

I made use of some surprise wars for movement bonus. Immortals helped finishing off Australia.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?

I founded 4 and captured 4 (3 from australia and one free city).

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?

First astrology, then beelined horseback riding. For civics I beelined Military tradition then Theology.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?

First military units, then a couple of settlers and the lots of missionaries and apostles.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?

Religious settlments to take a second city quickly before australia boxed me in. I also considered earth goddess.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?

Classical republic.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?

I put the first 4 promotions on Moksha to have double promotions.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?

No, everybody hated me.

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?

No. I suzed only jerusalem, but I don't think it contributed much.

- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why?

Always Golden (some at the last turn ) and always took exodus.

- How were the Barbarians?

Quite nasty. Three camp spawned (not at the same time) near the capital and I spend quite some time fighting barbarians.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?

Australia was very aggressive. I declared war I think just before he would have declared (sent 4 troops towards me).

- Did you enjoy your game?

That was ok. I don't normally go for RV, so it was a change from the usual. Sadly, the AI did not really present a challenge even tough it killed some of my apostles (forgot being in war with the civ).

 

[shooter6947]

Got my ass kicked by the Aussies. My own fault, too -- I asked him for a friendship and he declined despite being green and +6 with me: a sure sign that a surprise attack is on the way. He got around my Maginot Line city that I forward-settled on him, though, and took out my capital. Dumb of me to let it happen. I tried to retake and hold out for awhile, but ended up resigning to the inevitable.

 

[GaidinX]

Turn 228 RV - 2nd attempt

What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

First attempt I ignored religious settlements as a Pantheon, went for faith from appeal, got my 2nd city out late. I sent my combat units after the barbarian horde descending from the north as the Aussies were on green. Next thing I know the Aussie army is at the 2nd city and lay waste before I can get anyone back in position. I regrouped at the capital and MANY turns later attempted to retake my city for the iron but they had crossbows and horses and repelled. It was turn 100 and I had one city so I retired - Didn't explore the map due to barbarian horde to the south.

2nd attempt, Aussies get religious settlements the half-turn before me so I took appeal again. This time I ONLY built military outside of a builder and holy site and rushed walls, kept my units close and loaded up the 2nd city when settled - still put religious district NOT on the iron so that took longer to get - Aussies loaded up their army again on my border, but this time the barbarian horde descended and they went after it. I got my military JUST high enough to make them not want to attack - first barb rush damage made then start to queue again but I healed and got another archer - they then agreed to friendship and I could move forward - mid 50s. Stayed best buds the rest of the game and I moved on to settle the desert and areas south of it to build holy sites for a RV push.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all? - Not much, handy extra culture/gold for internal trade routes but never went to war so not bonus movement from suprise

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Settled 8, none captured

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics? Astrology/Masonry for religion and defense - then beelined to Theocratic government. Scripture in place as soon as available. Focused on water and embarked unit speed mid/late game when I knew where everyone else was.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting? Built a Campus in first 2 cities to keep up in Science since I didn't conquer my neighbor. All other cities focused on Holy Sites then prayer except one - I had fun and built a Petra city in the desert that took forever to get up and running but gave lots of faith from appeal when done. I had a couple harbors to get extra trade routes.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why? - Appeal, then ignore movement and tithe as the faith from each city owned was taken. Never added a building as production wouldn't have caught up and I NEEDED those first Apostles.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why? - Republican straight to Theocracy and stuck there. Faith discount plus citizens. Scripture, Religious combat, and late game the card for extra faith from buildings once I was done with builders to get my late cities up to decency.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why? Viktor for defense, then TOO many points into Pingala for culture/science - Kept me from upgrading Moshka for extra promotions till late game

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs? - Georgia funded my empire through diplo favor for much of the early game

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states? Not really, Jerusalem gave me some extra money, but never was Suz of anything else

- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why? Got a Renaissance Exodus after 2 normal of the same, allowed me to get Georgia taken down but nothing else. Normal next age and finished on Dark a few turns into the last age

- How were the Barbarians? Horrific, but wore them down eventually

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it? Such a late start made taking out each civ with a religion slow as I had a force of about 4-5 Apostles at best at any one time - had to bait their units to wear down through battle. Georgia re-ignited her religion 20 turns after leaving her and I had to send a new force down - luckily all my late cities had finally finished their sites and I could buy in shrine/temple and upped my faith by 150 or so per turn. I had units trickle in to help with Cree win (ran out of gurus and go close to losing the ONLY Debater I had managed to produce. Didn't get a 2nd Debater promotion until almost done with India and they only made it over to help kill France

Thank god all the AI were at constant war on the other large landmass - they ignored me and kept re-upping alliances even with 600+ grievances racked up due to conversion of the Cree alone.

I didn't think of the simple action of making a Religious Alliance with Australia until the last 20ish turns - they followed mine and gave me the +10. I had them on Science but I didn't need that - kind of kicked myself for that.

- Did you enjoy your game? Had a blast after the first crash. Was nice to be able to recover and the religious war felt like a careful military conquest with a lot of planning, waiting, and precise timing to keep my interest. The lower unit count compared to conquest made it easier and faster to execute. I've won RV where I could swoop in before the cities got big and the AI had low faith output, killing their religion early, or Menelik where I just overwhelmed everyone but this was a new challenge. Made me think a lot and be very conservative with resources.

 

[Wolfenlane]

Turn 161 RV

Nice location. Settled only 3 cities and focused on religion. Had not a single war - easypeacy
Thanks You for no season pass game!

 

[Tarry]

Turn 201 Religious Victory

- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Grab an early religion, aim for an early war using my Immortals to overwhelm someone and gain an expansion from it. Then go build up religion and roll out a "peaceful" swarm of Apostles (supported with 1 guru per 4 Apostle) to crush the opponents religions whilst maintaining peace.
Well, bloody Australia, my early surprise war really boosted their production, I had to delay my war to build up more forces as Australia was going to be tough.
Early barbarians all over the place, scouts spotting my cities and running away coming back with many friends. The forces I was building for Australia were well bloodies with a promotion each from fighting off barbarians. Australia was hard work to kill, the reduced melee strength from the Immortals was pretty significant when trying to capture cities. Fortunately I killed Australia before I met anyone else
Overall I executed my plan, but it was a bumpy ride.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Leader Ability was pretty useless. I never declared a surprise war after my 1st one on Australia. I didn't want my religious units being murdered by ordinary troops.
Unique Ability: Pretty much all internal trade routes all the way, I think I ended up with only a couple of external ones for city state envoy and keeping friends with Tamar
Unique Unit: These were good, I tried to play to their strengths getting ranged attacks in as much as possible.
Unique Infrastructure: Pretty good, gave me the culture and gold boosts I needed

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
I built 5 cities and conquered 6 cities from Australia.

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Astrology for holy sites. Ironworking for Immortals. Oligarchy for my Australian adventure. Reformed Church for Theocracy

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
I failed to get Mahabohdi Temple and Portala Palace, losing them both 1 turn before I would complete them.
The after game reports my strongest unit was Apostle with 24 kills.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Religious settlements. Wow, such an awesome start position that I got this, critical for early expansion with the barbarian's all about.
Work Ethic (missed out on Choral Music),
Crusade (for the Australian Adventure)
Pilgrimage (for faith boost to offset increasing costs of Apostles)
Mosque (more spreads for the win)

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Oligarchy for the combat advantages for the Australian Adventure. After that Monarchy and quickly switched to Theocracy for the religious bonuses
Scripture was permanent once available. Urban Planning permanent for production. Religious Orders or (Better Builders) depending on what I was doing.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Moshka for the extra charge on Apostles

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
Not really, after conquering Australia that was it for diplomacy for a long time.
I befriended Tamar early and finally Allied her, dunno how, normally she hates me, but she didn't have a religion and gladly accepted my few Missionaries.
On the other continent Kongo was eliminated before I got there.
I Befriended/Allied the French, and slowly everyone began to hate from accumulated grievances (including the French) as I kept converting their cities. So much so that Mapuche declared a surprise war (with of course support from Ghandi that well known warmongerer)

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city states?
Not really, Jerusalem's boost to faith was OK. They were too remote, it felt like they all wanted trade routes and well, I had better uses than to spend 2 ages building routes to them

- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why?
normal, golden (monumentality for builders), normal (Exodus - for conversions)

- How were the Barbarians?
Complete nightmare. So many of them swarming from camps, it didn't seem like the scouts needed to make it all the way back before the swarms started.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Barbs I had to overcommit to units and it delayed everything dealing with them
losing getting Mahabohdi Temple swapped to Hagia Sophia.
The time it took for my Apostles to get to the enemy across the sea.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Yes, but it was hard. Really hard, normally RV's are much easier.

 

[nufro]

T 164 RV. Managed to get Stonehenge. Evangelists all the way.

 

[arthur486]

Resigned @ T138
Got attacked by Australia on T24, managed to repel them and redeclare later (T64), made good progress. Converted Australia & Georgia and met remaining players T114 - T124. Very interestingly, Kongo was eliminated from game on T112.

However, bad planning and playing by the ear frustrated me as India & Cree had a bunch of Apostles I had no answer to, so decided to resign and focus on the next one.

Thank you for the game!

 

[hitretz]

T114 RV

- What was your plan for achieving a Religious VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
I wanted to achieve a clean 8-10 city T100 or less win but my game took a different direction. I was doing fairly good ~T60, but hesitated on expanding; only buying 2 settlers for a total of 6 cities.
4 horsemen 2 archers took Australia with ease, went exploring the map. Got Relic T30~ and chose Reliquaries & Missionary Zeal. Bought another relic from Georgia after getting my first Temple up.
Missed some key timings and just played it out T85+. I sent 1 Apostle and 3 Missionaries first after Georgia. Should've waited to spread her last, as she had clusters of her own Missionaries and aggressively re-took most cities. Lost ~T10 turns sending more units her way.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
The UI was good compensation for lack of early culture. UU only for barb defense.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
3 From Australia.

- What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
Divine Right and Square Rigging for movement.

- What were the key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
MT and Exodus timing. 2 Campus, 2 CH, as many TD as possible.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs are chosen, and why?
Settler for poor Cap growth.

- Were City-States helpful? Any competition with other civs for key city-states?
No

- Did you achieve Dark/Golden/Heroic ages? What dedications did you take and why?
Monumentality -> Exodus

- How were the Barbarians?
Got taken back last 20 turns 2 cities under heavy attack.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Slower start; Bought a bit too many vanilla (3-charge) workers, lost overall cadence T85, slow but steady game in general.

- Did you enjoy your game?
Was fun nonetheless.

 

[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.

 

[elmagico]

I finished this game rather late, but I don't care about medals and leaderboards. Are there any nowadays?

I eventually lost (with a win), because my giant death robot took the last capital with a misclick (and I didn't know it was a melee unit, but hey, know I now).
I described my first 100 turns in another topic.
After turn 100, my gameplay was far below average. I had a lot of delay conquering Tamar, but when I finally succeeded, I came into the zone where you know as a player you will win (but not with brilliant gameplay), but that it will only take ages to do so, and the real fun and dedication is over, but you play nevertheless. So hours after hours rushing with hundreds of cities building nonsense (not literally, but you know....), I finally screwed in the final turns (T 350 or so), because of the misclick.

There was some fun though. Experiencing with airplanes, which I never built before and using nucleair warheads. I will use this as a strategy.

I notice there are 2 GOTM every month, and I cannot catch up. So I will skip one or two.

The last note is that I can now update my game. Since the start of this GOTM95 I din't update, because I had experienced updates can mess up ongoing games!

Thanks for reading and see you later!