TSG 178 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG178 After Action 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 attach your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.) In your post.
- How useful was your UA?
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- What techs did you prioritize ?
- What did you think of the map and settings?​

 

[zxcvbob]

Close! I won a timed victory; probably about 10 turns away from a culture victory. I decided the only way to win a culture victory in 350 turns was to go Sacred Sites and exterminate all the other culture civs. Just one or the other wouldn't do it. I think I was right, I just wasn't fast enough.

- How useful was your UA?
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- What techs did you prioritize ?
- What did you think of the map and settings?

- I stole about 3 techs, then put my spy in my capitol because I was close enough to caught up. Might have been better to put my spy in Sydney to save a bunch of gold when I declared war on China.
- I think the map helped. I had a pretty big navy, and everything I needed to capture was coastal.
- Emperor is my favorite level to play at.
- Left side of Liberty, full Piety, then several in Exploration. Didn't even get close to an ideology (if I did, it would have been Autocracy and Futurism my first tenet)
- Calendar (tried to build Stonehenge but got beat), Bronze (find some iron), Philosophy, Compass, Education, Steel, Astronomy.
- I like the map, mostly liked the settings except the turn limit was too short.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Moderator Action: Placed large images in spoiler tags. leif

 

[golem]

Culture win turn 320.

Nice game, rather tricky. I decided to conquer the world first, then to try to look for some tourism and culture. I went directly to Compass, build about seven Galeas and conquer Thebes - Egypt was pretty ahead, with six wonders. Next I conquered all capitals - let only Paris alive. Fortunately all cities were near the coast, did not need astronomy. Next I destroyed all Civilizations and let only France - to have it simple.

My influence growth slowly (I had 27 tourism as maximum), but two concert tours helped. I had to DOW France every time to enter the way for Great Musician, as they refused to exchange Open Borders. Trule said I was surprised it worked. After the fiirst war they offered me Orleans, although my only army was 2 pikemans. Second war and second tour did victory.

 

[zxcvbob]

It took me 9 more turns to achieve a culture victory:


I may try this again w/o going for Stonehenge; the game goes pretty fast. A granary and another settler would have been a lot more useful than the gold I got as a Stonehenge consolation prize. Don't build any wonders except Pyramids and Oracle.

I also took Thebes with a swarm of galleasses, but Ramses didn't have any culture wonders, just religious ones. (I think it was Stonehenge and Great Mosque) I couldn't believe he took monasteries for his religious building when he had no wine or incense. (I wanted that one)

 

[Nizef]

CV on turn 331
Score (unadjusted) 1527

I settled on the hill to the W of the starting location. My idea was to go the SS route with violent annihilation of any AI with culture. I built the SH (t 62) in the beginning to get the faith growth going and it worked perfectly, since I had more than 100 faith per turn at the end. After that I built 4-5 galleasses and killed off Egypt (early and easy), then I waited for Navigation before attacking China and Russia. I could have won 10-15 turns earlier if I had not forgot to build the MG for the Great Musicians. At the end I gifted Tokyo to Monty and declared war on him to get my GM into his territory. My tourism was at 62 at the end and one GM was more than enough to end the game.
- How useful was your UA?
Maybe my ships stayed alive a couple of times when with another civ they would not have. I only managed one Samurai at the very end of the game and obviously I was nowhere near to get the Zero.
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I stole a couple of techs on the bottom half from Russia because I focused my limited resources to reach Compass and Navigation. After killing Russia I was first in tech. I mean seriously? Without focusing on science at all.
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Probably helped, since all cities I needed to conquer were coastal. And since there were only 5 AI, it made everything faster even if the start was annoyingly slow.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Emperor is nice for a casual game with little fear of getting in to serious trouble.
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
I took the Tradition opener, then 5 in Piety (I did not take Mandate of Heaven) then took four more in Tradition (all except Landed elite) and I also opened up Rationalism.
- What techs did you prioritize ?
Compass and Navigation, and absolutely nothing else. I still had four more techs to go in Renaissance. Probably one of my worst performances ever in this respect.
- What did you think of the map and settings?
The map and the settings were OK, but I strongly disliked the starting location, even with five fish in range. (Yes, I am picky with that).

Noteworthy: I had a crash in this game on turn 234 and then my computer was out of power on turn 242. Nothing special was going on at that time (I was waiting for Frigates). But feel free not to include me in the score list.

 

[beetle]

Are we no longer using the We have a game file upload system? It has not been enabled for GotM178.

I lost by score on T350 and was not close to CV. It’s really impressive to see people complete the game that quickly.

 

[leif erikson]

Sorry, it is corrected now. If you have difficulty with uploading, please let me know.

 

[socralynnek]

not a cultural victory, Time victory on turn 350...

Went tradition, tried to build some wonders, but I think 3 attempts failed (while also getting a few)

Got a religion (but without stonehenge, it wasn't that early, still the 2nd after Egypt), took Pantheon with production for work boats.

Had 4 cities, filled out Aesthetics, got some CS friends (which helped generating a few great people)

When having Privateers and frgates, I sent them out...
Egypt was even converting my first two cities, so they had to go first, then China.
Left Aztecs with 1 city, conquered Russia.
Had some happiness problems, until reaching the policy giving happiness for lighhouses harbors and seaports...

But then I only had too little turns left with too much culture to go...

Lessons: Better happiness management, more focus on taking out Egypt earlier and earlier musicians guild...

 

[socralynnek]

Gave it a second try.

Won an accidental domination win (misplanned which enemy cities to keep, on the other hand, if I had left Aztecs with their capital instead of some city on another island, getting enough tourism would have been harder)

Captured Egypt with triremes and galleases, but still already a little late maybe as their religion was spreading very fast...
On the other hand, after I built some of the buildings of their religions and then flipping the cities to mine, I was getting the tourism of their buildings as well.
By the way, I took sacred sites, but didn't build more than 4 cities by myself. Probably should have built more although happiness management was a problem...

In the end, I would not have gathered enough tourism for aztecs, I guess. Had one Musician waiting, one coming in time, but probably I would have needed a third one...