Featured Game #5 Spoiler Discussion

[Thalassicus]

Click Here to begin VEM Fatured Game #5. As fair respect for your fellow competitors, do not read this Spoiler thread before starting the game.

This thread is to discuss what happened in your game - strategies, other civs, resources, events of the game, and so on. What are your thoughts on how gameplay evolved?

When you complete the game, please post:

• Hall of Fame score.
• End date.
• Victory type (if you won).
• Attach a savegame of the moment just after the game ends.

High scores for each victory type will be announced on the website, civmodding.wordpress.com.

 

[albie_123]

Probably not worth the post, but, wow: SW Ruins gave me an extra Pop, and NW Ruins gave me Archery. Best luck I've had in a featured game so far - I've usually done so awful earlygame I've just given up.

Oh, and interesting Natural Wonder choice as well. I've never seen the Fountain of Youth before, and there it is right next to me!

 

[Toddy]

Played about 130 turns so far, went for stonehenge to start, which I got. Got the pop from the SW ruins and Mining from the NW one, which meant I got the gems and marble online quickly. And triad to expand as much as I could in the early stages.

I think I'm up to 8/9 cities, managing to contain the Americans in the NW to around Rio and beyond the mountains in the west and blocked the Ottomans to the mountain range SW of the fountain of youth.

Thankfully the three civs next to me haven't built much in the way of armies, so I took Almaty with my Mohawks and looked to join Wu with her war against Sulieman, razing one so far, when Wu makes peace. They have a few good wonders, but the settled SE next to the crater so, if I can get my troops in position around the rough terrain it should be next to fall.

Americas pop has exploded, with mine at about 1 million, his is over 11 million and most of the wonders. It looks like he will be next to be attacked.

 

[Txurce]

I played 100 turns without taking a break. I decided to test the Mohawk advantage by going full-out for war. As Thal proposed, I built Stonehenge and the Pyramids, built a river city getting all of the luxuries near the Fountain of Youth, and another river city getting all the luxuries near Rio. I learned the Wheel, but otherwise gunned for Metal Casting and the Longhouse.

I'm almost there, meaning my science is by far the weakest, with only a couple of mentors halls. However, I quickly filled out the Honor tree by killing barbs, then started Piety. Onondaga has a monument, granary, mentors hall, water mill, and barracks, all bought.

I built four MW's and an archer, then switched to a chariot archer, and took Almaty. That allowed me to build three more CA's. From there I declared war on the Ottomans and took a city with the CA's and a levy, which I then sold back to keep my expensive army afloat. Once done there I DoW'd China and started to lay siege to Beijing with my CA's. In the meantime, six MW's and two archers headed toward Washington.

 

[Thalassicus]

You've discovered by now this is a very similar map to Game 4. I was curious how a game would progress with similar terrain but different leaders and start locations. I think the start location for G5 is a lot more open-ended than G4 was, since the previous start was surrounded by deserts and marshes. G4 probably would have been more interesting as Polynesia, with the capability to settle the islands right away.

We're still close to the coast in G5 so we can get a decent navy. I turned Almaty into my ship production city later in the game, and used my fleet to invade the other continent after finishing off the starting continent.

 

[Txurce]

G5 is more open-ended, but yet very similar in that you can build a solid tall civ in easily defined and protected area. And yes, G4 would have been great for Polynesia.

I am also going to use Almaty as my shipyard. I'm beelining for Navigation, while sending a trireme to start exploring the shallows. I hope to have Istanbul in hand before crossing deep water. The question is whether or not I can do it at this point without catapults (he has longswordsmen).

 

[albie_123]

My god, after taking out Suleiman, I've completely neglected America. They've gotten almost every single Wonder so far (I managed Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and ToA - a growth trio) and I believe their military is second to none. I'm going to have a really rough time post-medieval.

 

[Txurce]

Given the layout, I made the decision to surgically target the capitals. My chariots eventually took Beijing with only one loss, and my Mohawks plus two archers did the same vs Washington. This happened early enough to prevent either of them from building a serious army (America had archers and spears, China resource-limited swords and cats). From there I attacked the Ottomans from Beijing with the chariots, while the Mohawks headed south from Washington to Istanbul. As I mentioned above, I've run into longswords, so I'm debating how to proceed. I'm in no rush, though, because 1) I can kill any counterattacks and 2) am far from Astronomy due to poor science. (I'm starting to work on that now, too.)

 

[Gamewizard]

My god, after taking out Suleiman, I've completely neglected America. They've gotten almost every single Wonder so far (I managed Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and ToA - a growth trio) and I believe their military is second to none. I'm going to have a really rough time post-medieval.

Not terribly a big deal but...you were suppose to have disabled your DLCs. ToA shouldn't be available.

 

[albie_123]

Whoops, you're right, I meant Machu Picchu. I probably said ToA because I remember thinking, 'Man, I wish I could build the ToA, I could use the archer bonus'.

Anyway, I've crashed and burned this game, and it's not even Renaissance. Washington appears to have this in the bag. I'll DoW him in the next three or so turns once my last longsword is made, but, I doubt it will be enough.

 

[Gamewizard]

I wanted to play a completely different game than I did in game 4, so I went Honor with a plan of conquest. I ignored the science half of the tech tree for much of the early game and instead researched the bottom half...very slowly. I took the militaristic city-state south of America with Mohawk Warrior spam, and then worked my way north taking 5 American cities. I had also dropped a city down by the fountain of youth. All this left me in happiness trouble until I got coliseums. The Ottomans dropped a city north of the my capital, so I took that as well, and then another of his south of the fountain of youth along the mountain chain. Now I have a city too close to China so she declares war on me and we go back and forth capturing and recapturing the Ottoman city. I make some ground and try pushing towards the Chinese capital but the terrain is difficult and ChokoNus are devasting in this situation. We finally agree to peace but after many casualties on each side. I am now at peace with the world but have a large standing army. I would like to push into Ottoman territory again but he has LOTS of Janissaries and the hilly/jungle terrain would be hell for my units. Instead I decide to drop 2 more cities into the jungle. These should provide lots of science and gold once developed.

Some notes:
- Science is way slower in this game than it was in game 4. I hit the Renaissance on turn ~130 before, and in this game I didn't hit it until ~200. I think this shows the strength of RAs and Great Scientists, both of which I ignored this game.
- I should have annexed and courthoused my American puppet cities way sooner than I did. The happiness difference between puppet and annex is negligible, but the growth and science rates are severely poor in puppets. Lesson learned.
- I totally regret not going into Tradition. I didn't run into enough barbs to make taking honor so early worth it. I could really use the policy that gives zero maintenance to garrisoned troops, as I have ~13 cities with a garrison. Funny how I wish I opened a tall policy tree for wide empire reasons.
- I thought I was done for science wise, as I was over 10 techs behind the leader at one point, but have since caught up and now only 5 techs behind. I am at an interesting part of the game policy wise as I need happiness ASAP so I need to go down the left side of Nationalism, but I have so many trading posts that I would like to go into Enlightenment sooner than later. This decision making problem is where VEM really shines for me.

 

[Txurce]

Interesting. I think I may have neglected science a bit too long in retrospect, but definitely found enough barbs to make Honor worthwhile. The big difference in my game is that I focused on blitzing with the Mohawks, kept pressure on all three neighbors almost from the start so no one could get too far ahead, and have kept only one city apart from the capitals. (I have three of my own, Almaty, Washington, Boston and Beijing.)

 

[Txurce]

I took Istanbul in t156 by peppering it with my chariots, then hitting it with several Mohawks. I lost one Mohawk in all. From there I stayed at war with the Ottomans, but despite multiple excess luxuries I was so broke that I had no science. On t169 my unhappiness dipped under 10, and I declared war on China to raise some gold. By t172 I was facing Janissaries and Chu-ko-nus, but managed to take one more city off each and signed second peace treaties.

On t175 I DoW'd America in order to move my caravel through his waters and possibly toward foreign shores. (America had crossbows, levies and pikes.) In the meantime I finally researched Education t183 and, thanks to the Hagia Sophia I had already built (along with a precautionary Great Wall) I now built the Porcelain Tower on t184. That gave me otherwise far-off Astronomy on t187, with (thanks to that second GS) Navigation 10 turns away. And with a Commerce-sourced GM cashed on the arrival of the Renaissance and luxuries-bearing caravel en route west, my gold problems were solved for the foreseeable future.

 

[palmerd2]

Long-time lurker here - my balls have finally dropped and I am first-posting by giving this month's game a spin. Look forward to giving you guys updates!

EDIT - extremely disappointed. Installed necessary mods (v159 and InfoAddict v16) and the trade window is so I can't trade with other civs.


Bug noted on CivFanatics: http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-465877.html

Bug noted on Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=79708139


FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU such an interesting start too... I had popped Pottery in from ruins, got population, and was able to buy both mentors hall and monument by turn 20 :-(


EDIT2-Decided to play anyway for 1) to explore the bug and 2) the challenge of not being able to sell or trade with the AI. Screenshot taken at Theology (entering Medeival); full report to come one I hit Astronomy.

Spoiler :

EDIT3-Hit Acoustics so here is the rundown: I settled up 2NW for the mountain for an observatory. Built Stonehenge early on, then with Marble was able to get the Oracle. Used Mohawk and a purchased Warrior to kill off encampments, earning influence with Rio and Venice to where we are allies. Missed Angor Wat by about 6 turns :-( but was able to get Hagia Sofia for a great artist and porcelain tower for a great scientist. Also made one on my own (purchased Garden+Hagia Sofia benefit) so I have those Scientists on standby for bulbs later on.

Science has been pretty rough - got some Research Agreements offered to me so I was able to trade :-D (just can't initiate trades due to v16 bug) but acoustics still took 25 turns - ouch!

Screenie here:

Spoiler :

Plan is to get Astronomy, then Metal Casting for Longhouses, then on to Archaelogy then backtrack. Currently at 17/36 Policies.

EDIT4 (Final)- The InfoAddict mod not only bugged, it also started slowing down around the Industrial Era and turns started taking 30 seconds plus to complete. Without being able to trade, I found myself way to low on money I would normally spend on research agreements to keep my techs current. I had to stop the game :-(

Once I get enough posts and can PM I'll send this - For game six can we use vanilla InfoAddict v17 instead of 16? Dev notes are saying the trade screen bug was fixed in this version. Thanks, David

 

[Thalassicus]

This game was from before G&K's release, when patches introduced problems into older mods. I'm surprised you got it to work at all. I plan to host new featured games with up-to-date mods within the next month or so.

 

[palmerd2]

Don't put too much on your plate :-D

I will get G&K once its on Steam sale.