7OTM08 (Aug 25) - Completion of Age of Exploration Spoiler Thread

[Eyswein]

At the top of your post please post: Difficulty Level & Number of Age of Exploration turns

A few questions to consider:
- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? 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?
- Was the designated Civ a good choice or would you think a different one could have performed better?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
- Any cool info we forgot to ask about?
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy this Age?

 

[dzn]

Deity - 85 turns
ran into trouble early with some neighbors so was very heavily focused on my own continent, for relics I had to embark to the other continent and managed to get enough for toshakhana. Enlightenment came easy and I had more than enough settlements.
I felt like I was pretty well setup for modern at this point.

Spoiler age rankings :

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Deity - Abbasid - 72 Turns - 10 Legacy Points (3 culture, 3 military, 3 science, 1 economic)

- What Legacy bonuses did you chose and why? What other start up things did you do at the beginning of the Age of Exploration?
(2) Fealty, (2) Economic Golden, (1) Eco Attr, (1) Culture Attr, (1) Diplo Attr, (1) Science Attr

Mementos = Kwalkwali + Queen's Jewelry -- Had a lot of resources + 4 cities to start & 3 wonder tiles being worked + I would buy a settler turn 1 to get the 4 wonder ties between me and Ibn.

- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? 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?
Suz max city states (ended up getting 7), stay peaceful, sim city

Got (3) Future Techs + (1) Future Civic

- Was the designated Civ a good choice or would you think a different one could have performed better?
Abbasid is king of Science

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
Cartography to slot more resources faster -- stuck to bottom of tech tree through Architecture
Maxed Abbasid civic tree first -- was naive to think i could get House of Wisdom when it was still available at the last node; it was finished the turn I completed that useless civic

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Kept Friend of Wei up most of the age but then bowed out to avoid any war on my continent -- maybe I could have gotten one more future tech with it but saving on gold and prod on units for war felt better at the time

- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns in this Age? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
Started age with (7), added (9) more for (16) total with 5 cities and majority hub towns with a few urban centers and resort towns with the natural wonders -- 2 settlements were captured/peace deal from Pachacuti.

- Religious bonuses chosen and why?
Barakah because I had two immediate natural wonders & Shamanism because Ibn had a lot of Tundra nearby & Parampara is just my default for more relic slots

- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
Theocracy and always took +20% culture because there are a lot of good civics in the age + Abbasid tree is very good

- Did you enjoy this Age?
Abbasid is always a blast to play

Spoiler Map at End of Age w/ Lagacy Rankings :

 

[Manpanzee]

50 turns Exploration
90 turns Antiquity
140 turns so far

Civ: Abbasids (non-Abbasid is non-optional for science victory)
Mementos: Cultural attribute + Exploration attribute (triggering the "free pop in towns" before upgrading cities or choosing legacies was nice... fast Abbasid gold for the snowball)
Legacies: Fealty & attribute points

Had three Gold and no Silver to start the era, so "build settlers + buy buildings" was the formula for the start of the age. I cranked out a quick five Settlers from my four cities and planted three of them in homelands for newly-spawned resources, while two crossed the water to settle in the distant lands I could already see. I eventually made four more settlements in distant lands, one of which I converted to a city at the very end of the age.

First time playing since the big patch for me, and the end-of-age stuff seems a little wonky. I got two Future Techs on turn 39, which I expected to trigger the countdown, but the second one didn't add to age progress at all. Idk if I missed something in the patch notes.

In any case, ten turns meant a ton of gold to spend polishing up my empire. I bought a whole bunch of Colossal Heads and almost every single possible warehouse building, only skipping a single Sawmill that could only replace a strong Colossal Head tile. Not sure about the ten extra turns thing. This felt like too much. I think it might play better if Firaxis really cranked up the intensity of the final crisis stage. I kinda see that working in Antiquity, but the Exploration crises are pretty irrelevent currently.

 

[Bleidraner]

60 turns Exploration
89 turns Antiquity

Well I have run out of time for this GoTM, so I am out of the competition, but I have finished Exploration and will try to finish Modern.

I started in pretty poor shape, my Antiquity was too fast and I did not build up my empire well enough, so only 6 settlements and pretty poor and small ones. But the Abbasids are AMAZING and allow you to catch up on science pretty quickly.

So spammed 5 settlers and sent them to distant lands, following my cog and 2 scouts. I finished Cartography in a couple of turns and also Astronomy (future techs from Antiquity). Also something really weird happened, Laffy who had a pretty good capital and 3 cities went down to 1 city only, Rouen, in the transition of between t1 and t2. I think this might be a bug, although it could also be that the happiness crisis made him lose those cities in the last turn of Antiquity and the empire that got them decided to raze them. And then the UI of the game did not recognize that until the end of t1.

Anyway, whatever happened, here I am with my crappy empire but with the chance to wipe a civ to get a great result. Getting to Manpanzee's 50 (amazing run) is impossible for mere mortals but I was seeing a 55 in spite of my terrible empire. Unfortunately I screwed it up, by the time I gathered my forces and attacked, on the turn when I was going to take his cap, 2 other settlements were planted. So I got Rouen but not the civ wipe. Maintaining the war was going to cost me too much and my build queues were full of UQs and the like, so I focused on a peaceful run. 65 I thought. I also did not want to destroy my settlement cap more when I had 5 settlers in distant lands and was planning on buying another 2.

I misscalculated (again) as this was my first experience with the age transitions. I did not realize that the countdown would start around 95%, I thought it would only start at 100%. So I delayed a few legacies (treasure convoys not unloaded, a few relics at archive and 2 settlers ready to plant for military last 4 points) to do everything together and reduce the crisis time, I could have pulled the trigger maybe one turn before. On the other hand, the early clock meant I could finish by t60, so for once I had a nice surpise.

The biggest challenge was the religion. I am so used to being able to pick first that I have almost forgotten how to play without the 2 relics for city state converted. What I did was do Piety>Theology, pick convert capitals and 4 culture beliefs and the trade route conversion as additional belief. And then build three merchants and send them blindly into distant lands early in the game. I likely missplayed that, as I think I probably did not need to research Theology, there are other sources of relics and I could have done what I did with merchants with double the amount of missionaries.

Anyway, I am happy with Expl. I got all 12 legacies and, unlike Antiquity, I think I am well set up for Modern.

It is incredible that with all the IPs being friendly, and playing Himiko, the settlers are safe pretty much anywhere. This map is fun and I will try to finish Modern, thank you GoTM staff.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[Suicidekills]

Diety 70 turns

I chose Abbasid because I played them in a previous Science game and I found them to be really good.

Started with a mad rush to distant lands to get some treasure convoys running. I was still focusing on Science and keeping my neighbors happy.

I did at one point have to choose sides, so I allied with Jose Rizal and Lafayette and declared war on Ibn and Hatshesput. I wasn't interested in Ibn, but Hatshesput had a nice city with a bunch of wonders in it from the previous age. I already had the navy from my mad rush to distant lands. It was not too difficult taking her capital before seeking peace.

Eventually, I just started playing on auto pilot.