Civ6 6otM 03 After Actions Report

[VirginiaRounder]

Victory achieved on turn 195 (1340 AD) with a lowly score of just 345 (Mary Tudor I) when I found and converted poor lonely Paris. Settled 7 cities, only captured 3 in two declared wars, one against England and one against Pericles-led Greece (I guess the Greek empire had a schism in this game!). I got the second religion because someone got Stonehenge very quickly.

The city-states were fairly helpful, because there were so many near me I was able to accumulate a lot of bonuses pretty fast. It was a fun game, but I would definitely consider it a fairly easy win as well (probably the easiest one we've had here so far). I like Hojo Tokimune a lot; Japan is pretty well balanced and seems pretty well-suited to be be able to get any of the victory types.

 

[ferenginar]

Religious Victory T261 1750AD Score 274

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 5 captured 0

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Faith

- Did You get the first religion?
Third

- How much warring did you do?
None, barring a bit of religious combat. Arabia & Brazil joint DoW on me, but only saw one Brazilian warrior, and no Arabians. A few turns later they offered peace.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes, concentrated on the religious ones, for the extra faith

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Couldn't find Civ 8, France, and when I did, lost 4 or 5 Apostles to the Barbs, before I got support units up to clear the way, that cost about 15-20 turns.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Absolutely, my first RV.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Peace and love, and lots of apostles.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Before the game I had spend hours trying to calculate/guestimate to the best of my knowledge what would be the most effective method to roll up a pangea map and convert the last city. A turn 70-80 win was the goal and i played for that. I decided the best way was to go with zero settlers and not spending the time needed to get horsemen/swordsmen but going with just archers/warriors instead. So during the game i didnt build an encampment and kept going with the slow units. I didnt care about research nor policies beyond those that were part of the plan.

By turn 60, after conquering almost 4 civs and having my prophet and sufficient faith ready and a bazillion archers to conquer the remaining enemies, the map turned out not to really be a pangea map. My plan totally didnt fit the actual map and i quit.

Personally i find it kind of unfortunate when a GOTM is totally different than what the given info suggests. Making plans based on the given information is kind of what it is all about imo. This way you simply get punished for making plans. If it were common and surprising every GOTM at least we know what to expect, but from my past GOTM experience this is not usually the case.

EDIT: sorry, was a bit disapointed yesterday. Thanx for making us GOTMs. Ill try not to give up too easilly next time and be more prepared for surprises.

 

[torsteinvh]

Religious Victory Turn 186, Score 386

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 4, captured 9. Wiped out Brazil, England and both Greeces.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Having never focused on religion before I just tried to focus on everything religious

- Did You get the first religion?
No, don't think so...

- How much warring did you do?
A lot Constant war from the start, capturing cities and settlers. I wanted to minimize the number of cities to convert later on. Besides that, I had to have something to do while building religious infrastructure.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes, as always. Focused on the religious ones, obviously.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
No, not really. I'm usually an Immortal player, so to be honest, Prince was quite easy.
A funny surprise near the end was that France had managed to found exactly one city

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, very much. Fun to focus on something I usually ignore. Learned alot about the religious aspects of the game. Probably wasted a lot of missionaries/apostles.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
The sword at first, relentless evangelism later on.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Ground out a turn 293 but did my last three civs in 15 turns and had 7000 unspent faith. First religious game and know what I need to do next time around so it's a "meh" game this time.

Started out peacefully but ended up being DOW'd a few times so added London and Knossos to my empire. Can see Yerevan being crucial to religion game being able to pick promotions. Should have gone for the conversions much, much earlier... About 150 - 200 turns earlier really...

 

[albinsix]

Hello,
Religious Victory ; Turn=250 ; date= 1695 AD ; points= 414
my save is the turn after wining (or we need to uploaded the turn before winning?)

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

10 cities settled ; 0 capture


- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Theocracy governement


- Did You get the first religion?

No but in second


- How much warring did you do?

Just in defense


- Were City-States helpful?

So much! All the 3 religious city-states but I was in intense competition with GRECE

This slow me down.


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

Attack form England as we were in good relationship.

This slow me down as I had to reinforce military units


- Did you enjoy the game?

Yes


- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?

Spread the word thru peace and love with army of missionary and Apostle

 

[Halfdan Helgrim]

Religious victory turn 142 and 376 points.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 3 core cities, even tough 2 would have been enough. Captured all English, Greek, Greek, Brazil and capitol of Arab.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Holy Civics and Military.

- Did You get the first religion?
Got second religion through great person points.

- How much warring did you do?
England, Arab, Greek, Greek and Brazil.

- Were City-States helpful?
The City State that provide a strategic resource was very helpful for building both melee and cavalry.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Was surprised at not finding last two civs, so started beeline caravel.

- Did you enjoy the game?
It was nice and quick, but that the AI is soooo crap makes it rather boring.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Mostly war.

 

[BobTheRabbit]

Ok, so I have a bit of a problem here...

I finished the game. Or so I thought.

As far as I can tell, I've converted every civilization in the game to my religion, Shinto. I did this on turn 165, score of 292. Clicked "Next Turn", and waited for the victory screen...

But no victory screen.

Hmmm... well, maybe one of the civs got one of their cities converted back at the last minute (how annoying). But, no, that didn't happen. I conquered the English very early in the game, so there are 7 civs still left. And 7 of them are following Shinto.

"Ok," I thought, "maybe I have to go through one more turn, just to be sure." So now, here I am on turn 167. Still have 7 out of 7 civs following Shinto. In fact, there's only ONE city in another civilization NOT following Shinto. (Plus one of my own... it was founded pretty recently.) But according to this screen, I should have won:


Sorry... couldn't seem to get the screenshot to work. But if you want to open either of the save files, you'll see what I mean.

Thoughts?

 

[Sir Prizer]

Religious Win T251 Score 400

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 5 cities, captured 4 - including London and Athens

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Bee-lined to Theocracy. That was really all it took. Able to get production of faith up over 70 in Kyoto and over 170 civ-wide. So I built roving bands of Apostles and marched west first, then east, finally swimming north. Researched Holy Wonders as much as possible. Kyoto built Stonehenge, Pyramids, Forbidden City and Colosseum. Tokyo built Portala Palace. Also, Oracle from Athens and Hanging Gardens from Brazil.

- Did You get the first religion?
Yes, via Stonehenge at T32.

- How much warring did you do?
Quite a bit. Took London, then Athens, then pushed Brazil around for 2 cities - actually 3 but I razed a 1 pop.

- Were City-States helpful?
Sure. Yerevan, La Venta and Jerusalem supplied faith bonus. I had Papal Primacy, so double bonus.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Finding Paris took too long. I knew another civ was somewhere, but kept following the land rather than look offshore. Once I realized I was short one civ, sent everyone in the direction of the unexplored region and found the last key.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, though it was rather easy on Prince. Still, I couldn't keep my time down, so I need the practice. Worked on improving district placement considering Japan's ability. It worked fairly well for maximizing faith and other output.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Both, I thought Gorgo would put up more of a fight, but she let my apostle hordes walk right through, hardly any battling.

 

[LongreachJones]

Turn 187, 219 Points. Religious Win.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
5 Settled cities, plus a single capure - that being London

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Raced for Theology followed by Reformed Church. In techs, I hit almost exclusively wonder techs and defensive stuff

- Did You get the first religion?
Founded first religion by a long, long way.

- How much warring did you do?
Only a little, England sent a settler within sniffing distance of one of my archers, so I couldn't help myself. Finished the war by taking London.

- Were City-States helpful?
The sheer power of 4 religious city states meant I was pushing out apostles VERY fast

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
France on it's own little island was a very unwelcome surprise. Those barbarians on their own probably extended the game by an extra 25-30 turns

- Did you enjoy the game?
Very much so, I did. Din't like that it was so low scoring, but learned a lot about the mechanics of a religious victory. I can absolutely see why some people are posting turn 100 wins

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Love and peace, peace and love and BOATS

 

[DanQuayle]

T103 RV, Score 175

Spoiler :

I kind of blew this one. I was on pace for a very quick finish. I got three Scouts from Tribal Villages and thus gained a very good vision of the map early on. However, it kind of triggered my downfall. I met a French galley really early on (sub T50) and thus assumed that Cartography wouldn't be needed for this map since there was no way a Prince AI could have already researched Cartography at this point. I thus delayed Cartography for way too long and it turned out to be bottleneck here. There was indeed a very small shallow water passage to France to the North-East near the pole (explaining the early Galley), but I found it too late for it to matter.

 

[pontias]

Hi All.

Turn 162. My first full game on civ6.
I knew conquest would make life a lot quicker, but decided to go entirely peaceful to see what happened and i could build up stuff in my cities.

I found a relic in a hut which gave me a great early faith boost. Had about 3 cities, picked up a couple of settlers roaming around. Prioritised holy sites and spammed missionaries. Used an apostle to clear sparta's religion.

Only 2 other civs had their own religion, so arabia was hamstrung (wouldnt they get the last religion automatically?)

Took about 10 turns to get my missionaries into position to kiss the french cities at the end.

cheers

 

[eternalsceptic]

Turn 130, Score 265

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 7, Captured 2 (London on T40, wiping out England, and Athens only after it was left too undefended, with just 2 Archers and a Scout.)
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Bee-lined for Petra, went for Crossbow just in case, then mostly did stuff for city state quests after. Should have gone for Carto much earlier.
Civics was Political Philo > Divine Right.
- Did You get the first religion?
Second (Gorgo got Stonehenge), London came with a complete Holy Site (England was leading GPP) and built another 2 early.
I took Religious Community for housing, Holy Order for spamming religious units, Meeting House since nothing else seemed useful, and Pilgrimage just for a slight boost. Pantheon was Desert Folklore for massive bonuses with the Holy Site adjacency card. Had three 33 Faith sites in the desert (incl relic & buildings).
- How much warring did you do?
Only early to take the 2 capitals.
- Were City-States helpful?
+8 to each Holy Site from the 4 religious states was really good. The Suzerain bonus din't matter much other than Yerevan. Would have used Kumasi had I found it much earlier.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Could not find Norway till a couple of turn before it ended. Poor Harald had 3 Barb Builders near him and apparently no navy at all. Surprisingly, France found me pretty early and I ended up friends with Catherine. That was also why I thought the last Civ (Norway) was near Paris and sent all my Apostle/Missionaries there mistakenly. On retrospect, should have checked if Catherine had met Harald (Harald did not meet any other Civ other than me!). Kumasi being influenced by Harald should also have hinted where he was. I think I could have won 20 turns earlier if I was more observant and scouted more aggressively.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Was a nice change of pace from the usual Diety Industrial Zone stacking. Unfortunately, din't seem to have experienced Japan's unique bonuses much.
- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
The 2 nearest happened to be the leaders in GPP (other than Gorgo going Stonehenge) so once they were down din't have much competition in religion for a long time after I religion bombed Gorgo. Saladin din't even get his free prophet cos Harald took too long to get his (he was at 0 GPP for a few turns!).

 

[WillowBrook]

Converted the world to Buddhism t176 (no idea what the score was, will update if I find it)

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 5, captured none.

- What did you prioritize for research and CIVICS (not policies - those are governance cards)?
Sort of wandered around the tech tree, should have gone for cartography much earlier. Went for theology and then divine right in the civics tree (my culture was quite slow).

- Did You get the first religion?
Yes, with Stonehenge. Don't know if that was a wise route, because you still have to build a holy site to start producing missionaries. I was able to extinguish Protestantism (England) and Catholicism (Brazil) pretty quickly after they were founded, and Saladin didn't get around to building a holy site until almost the very end; with the three other Arabian cities already Buddhist it made no difference. Pericles' taoism needed a bit of work, but didn't put up much resistance.

- How much warring did you do?
None. I even managed not to get declared on. I know warring would have been faster, but I wanted a peaceful game.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yerevan, of course. A bit of extra faith from the other religious city states was nice, but not hugely significant, compared with several holy sites surrounded by desert with desert folklore.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
France! Grr.... I was sure I'd seen something about England meeting France early on, and then I found a French galley near Norway, but I never found the northeast passage others have reported above. Instead I took 9 turns to research cartography when I could have already won if I'd bothered to research it earlier.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, it was my first attempt at a religious victory, and I found it an interesting puzzle.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
All peace and love, although other civs didn't agree when I converted their holy cities.

P.S. - I took somewhat detailed notes on my first 100 turns. I'll type them up and put them in the opening actions thread if anyone is interested, just let me know.

 

[Larry Gates]

1615AD, turn 234, score 419.

How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settle 7, capture 2 from England and 4 from Sparta.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Military, religious and economic

- Did You get the first religion?
No, fourth.

- How much warring did you do?
England attacked, I repelled then conquered with archers. Sparta had 3 civs to its religion, so made an open borders deal with Athens, then conquered Sparta with crossbows and musketmen. Athens attacked, and I held him off until he gave up.

- Were City-States helpful?
I had 3 to 6 envoys to the 4 religious CS's, and was suzerain of 3 or 4.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Didn't find France until very last. Arabia resented first conversion so I laid back. Later I swarmed apostles and they converted happily.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Sure.

- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword?
Mostly just sending missionaries and apostles.

 

[wendy46121]

Hi, New here. This was fun! Religious Victory I won on turn # 319 year 1896 with a score of 335

-How many cities did you settle or capture? I settled a total of 7 cities. Kyoto, the capital. 4 of them around Kyoto, and then two randomly from captured settlers (well, barbarians captured them and I killed barbarians.) I did not capture or lose any cities.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? - I prioritized anything that boosted faith.
- Did You get the first religion? - yes I did because I pretty much immediately built stonehenge.
- How much warring did you do? - not much. right at the begining victoria and pericles declared war on me, but nothing happened there. Then later saladin and herald. Again, nothing big happened.
- Were City-States helpful? - there were several faith based city states and I was suzerain of 2 of them lots of faith.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? How weak france was, and completely over run by barbarians. I ended up clearing the area, and giving her some money as a gift to help her get more than one city!
- Did you enjoy the game? Yes!
- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword? I did not declare any wars, I just used a LOT of apostles to spread the word, and kept a few inquisitors by my cities in case Saladin's apostles came through (and they did a LOT! he was my biggest religious competition.

 

[BobTheRabbit]

Ok, so this is officially a bug.

See my earlier post (#28) for an idea of what I'm talking about. I've done some testing to figure this out, and it appears that if you successfully convert your last civilization while you are at war with them, then the religious victory will not trigger. That was the problem with my original save.

In my original game, France and Norway declared a joint war against me about two turns before I finally converted France. (I had previously converted all of the other civs, and was in the process of converting France when they declared war.) They didn't have much of a military, and they certainly weren't doing anything about my apostles in their territory, so I just kept "spreading religion" until they converted in turn 165. At that point, the religious victory screen indicated that 7/7 civs were now following my religion. (The 8th civ, England, was eliminated much earlier on.) However, I never got the religious victory. I played two more turns to see if it would ever trigger, and it didn't.

After seeing so many other players post a successful victory, I figured that it couldn't be anything with the original save or the setup of the game. So I tried to imagine how my game could have been different. The only thing that came to mind was that I was at war with the French when I converted them as my last civ.

To test my theory, I went back to a save of the game from two turns before they declared war on me. I then played from there. (This was not for any sort of official GOTM submission... I was just trying to verify whether this was a bug.) Sure enough, two turns later (turn 163), the French and Norwegians declared their joint war. THIS time, I decided to keep my apostles at bay until such time as I could make peace. At the first opportunity (ten turns later), I asked for peace with the French and got it. I then sent my apostles to convert their two cities, and voila - I won a religious victory on turn 173. That save is posted below as "Second Playthrough - Convert After War". If you open that save, sue for peace, and then convert their cities, you'll get the religious victory.

I then wondered if, in my original game, I kept playing until such time as I could get peace with the French, would it automatically give me the religious victory at that point. The answer, sadly, is no. I am now at turn 174, have been at peace for two turns, have all 7 civs converted, and I haven't won. That save is posted below as "Post-war - no religious victory". It would seem that the only way to win a religious victory at this point would be to wait until another civ converts enough cities back to their original religion, then send my apostles to convert them back to my religion. I'm not actually sure that that would work, as I didn't have the patience to wait for all of that to happen... it could take 50 turns or more.

So I have two questions/issues for the moderator:

(1) The larger issue here is the bug in the game which prevents a religious victory if the last civ that you convert is one that you happen to be at war with during the time of the conversion. I have to believe that this is a bug, because if it isn't, then all you would have to do to prevent an AI (or human opponent in multiplayer) from winning a religious victory would be to declare war with them and never make peace. However, since this is a GOTM that has not reached its end-date for submission, I didn't want to post these saves in the Bug Reports forum. If you feel that it would be better to do so now, then please, by all means, use my posts to create a new thread there. If it is better to wait, then please feel free to do so once this GOTM is over.

(2) The not-as-big issue is what you would like me to do for my GOTM submission for this month. I can assure you that it was a turn 165 win with a score of 290. (It's certainly not going to earn a record.) I've posted that save as well so that you can check on the score, and also see that all civs are converted to my religion, but the game didn't trigger the religious victory.

Anyway, at a minimum, I wanted to at least make others aware of this particular religious victory bug.

 

[leif erikson]

(2) The not-as-big issue is what you would like me to do for my GOTM submission for this month. I can assure you that it was a turn 165 win with a score of 290. (It's certainly not going to earn a record.) I've posted that save as well so that you can check on the score, and also see that all civs are converted to my religion, but the game didn't trigger the religious victory.

Anyway, at a minimum, I wanted to at least make others aware of this particular religious victory bug.

We will accept your game as a Turn 165 religious victory with a score of 290.

(1) The larger issue here is the bug in the game which prevents a religious victory if the last civ that you convert is one that you happen to be at war with during the time of the conversion. I have to believe that this is a bug, because if it isn't, then all you would have to do to prevent an AI (or human opponent in multiplayer) from winning a religious victory would be to declare war with them and never make peace. However, since this is a GOTM that has not reached its end-date for submission, I didn't want to post these saves in the Bug Reports forum. If you feel that it would be better to do so now, then please, by all means, use my posts to create a new thread there. If it is better to wait, then please feel free to do so once this GOTM is over.

Think you should make a post in the Bug Report forum stating the general problem and then link it to this post with the saves and detailed explanation. Do you think that would work for you?

 

[BobTheRabbit]

We will accept your game as a Turn 165 religious victory with a score of 290.


Think you should make a post in the Bug Report forum stating the general problem and then link it to this post with the saves and detailed explanation. Do you think that would work for you?

That sounds good. I'll post one out there in the morning.

Thank you.

 

[Odinbudd]

Score - 239 (I think, couldn't find but it said that I reached Dan Quayle level in after turn screen with 239 next to his name. After seeing GOTM 1 results, I am confident they were not referring to the player by that name!)
Year - 1410
Turn - 202

- How many cities did you settle or capture? Captured London early on, then settled 3 more for total of 5 cities.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? Went with anything that gave me faith early on and any good faith wonders.
- Did You get the first religion? I got the second, then used 2 quick Apostles to enhance it fully.
- How much warring did you do? Only warred with England early on to take London and eliminate them from game. Surprisingly, no one declared on me even though they kept demanding I stop spreading my religion and I kept telling them "No"
- Were City-States helpful? Only in the beginning. The faith based ones were good for the 1 pt = 2 faith per turn in capital in the early game.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? I was surprised at how no other civs seemed to challenge me for religious superiority. I had maybe 4 religious unit fights in the entire game.
- Did you enjoy the game? Yes, went by very quickly and was an easy win!
- Spread the word thru peace and love, or conversion by the sword? Peace and love man, all the way! (Don't ask England however!)