TSG 199 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG199 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?​

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 188 Domination victory.
UA was useful, those luxuries made nice difference. Map and settings were OK. I planned to attack when I reach frigates, but Germany and France forced me to attack earlier, by simultaneous DoW. I had much ca$h, so I bought some galleasses to kick AI asses After cities, galleasses and other units killed most of their offensive land and naval units, I upgraded galleasses to frigates and counterattacked taking their capitals. Then I did the same to the rest of AIs. The Great Lighthouse made conquest faster.

 

[zxcvbob]

Turn 188 Domination victory.
UA was useful, those luxuries made nice difference. Map and settings were OK. I planned to attack when I reach frigates, but Germany and France forced me to attack earlier, by simultaneous DoW. I had much ca$h, so I bought some galleasses to kick AI asses After cities, galleasses and other units killed most of their offensive land and naval units, I upgraded galleasses to frigates and counterattacked taking their capitals. Then I did the same to the rest of AIs. The Great Lighthouse made conquest faster.

How did you take Berlin? I'm about 230 turns in, and I finally just captured it. There is only one safe tile to bombard it from with a 3-range ship, and the city one-shots anything that gets close. So I started sacrificing caravels so my frigates could attack 3 at a time w/o getting killed, and that's how I sacked it. (I didn't even try with galleasses like I had planned because Berlin was 38 strength already.)

I probably should have started with Korea.

 

[zxcvbob]

Domination victory on turn 319, which seems pitiful at King difficulty. But I started with Berlin, and it really needed battleships or artillery. The first 100 turns or so I set up my little empire, As soon as I got frigates, which I beelined, I declared war on Bismarck but that war took forever. I think it was over around turn 245 or 250. The rest of the game went really fast, ending with the siege of Paris. I wonder if I should have saved Berlin for last? But that seemed dangerous...

Social policies were Liberty, Exploration, Rationalism, Autocracy. I settled 5 cities. Priority wonders were Great Lighthouse, the Mausoleum. Sistine Chapel, Eiffel Tower, and Prora, but I built a few others too plus stole a bunch from Germany. My pantheon was the idols one with faith and culture from gold and silver. It was fun zipping around the map like Elizabeth with both GL and the Exploration opener.

I liked the map. I may try this again, and attack Korea first to level-up my galleasses, then France or Russia. Come back for Germany much later, but I'll have to keep some military units at home for defense going that route.

 

[zxcvbob]

I've played the first 100 turns on this one several times, trying to figure it out. If I ignore Germany and go after Korea first, Germany declares war on me. If I build too many wonders while waiting to research Compass, Germany declares war on me for settling in lands he considers his. If I just build a couple of wonders and then build military (even useless melee units; they still make good cannon fodder to protect my ranged units) Germany still scolds me for settling too close but stays friendly until I'm ready to declare war.

The winning move seems to be Great Library, then Oracle, and very few other wonders. I didn't build the Great Lighthouse, I let someone else build it and then I stole it. I was able to unlock Compass about 50 turns sooner, while Berlin was still manageable with galleasses; I think it fell in about 3 turns and I didn't lose any units. I captured Bismarck's other 2 cities and razed them, then immediately went after Korea before he could build turtle ships. Two AIs eliminated before I'd even met half of them. Then I stopped for about 10 turns waiting for Navigation to unlock; upgraded all my ships and built a couple of privateers, and went to town on the rest of 'em. Finished on turn 231, where the first time I played it I was still in a quagmire with Germany at that point. Sub-200 games probably need 2 or 3 fleets instead of just one.

Edit: The Great Library is not necessary; what does seem to be necessary is to beeline Compass, with only a detour for Iron Working. You need galleasses before Germany, and he's probably going to be the tech leader. Just a few turns can make a big difference, so there are useful early techs you'll need to delay. And if Korea gets to Astronomy before you declare war on them, you'll probably need to wait for Navigation to take them out. The rest fall like dominoes (Korea does too if you have frigates and are careful where you put them)

 

[Dantavian]

Victory type: Domination / Victory date: Turn 316 (1892 AD) / Score: 3689

UA:

Unique ability was useful for alleviating happiness issues in the early part of the game. However this UA would be worth virtually nothing on certain map types.

Spying:

My first spy was killed early on. Later, spies were used to recon target cities and local terrain. From the Renaissance my technology advantage was such that it rendered tech stealing impossible.

Map Type / Victory:

The map type helped victory as the AI is not as adept at using sea power as it is capable of using land armies. The map type definitely helped victory as it was quite easy logistically to eliminate rivals using just a navy. The main hindrance I found was the lack of local luxury resources which caused happiness issues early on and limited early growth. This also slowed the annexation of the German cities after conquest.

Difficulty level:

The main affect was I was forced to prioritize taking Berlin and conquering the Germans as quickly as possible. Berlin had started to spam wonders by the medieval era and Germany was beginning to snow-ball. This forced my decision towards a strategy of early German conquest. After I managed to deal with early issues my empire began to snowball and the king AI was unable to compete.

Social policies:

1. Liberty (all) – for fast expansion
2. Tradition: Oligarchy + Aristocracy
3. Honor: Discipline – for early army vs. Germany
4. Exploraiton (all) - sea focused
5. Patronage: Philanthropy – Less money needed overall for city state gifts

Ideology: Autocracy:

Elite forces – maintain damage output for damaged Frigates
Fortified borders – useful happy bonus
Nationalism – Large navy -33% cost

Technology Focus:
Early on tech choices focused on short term needs such as growth, military and happiness. As the game progressed I switched to an overall naval bias in tech planning. Long term focus mid/late game was Submarine + Battleship.

Map and Settings:

I enjoyed the map very much. Close proximity of Germany and Korea presented a difficult early game challenge. Having a good source of iron made early conquest much easier using Indonesia unique unit with promotions. It was a challenging map to get a handle on in the early stages with a number of hostile city states nearby.

The Kris swordsman was very useful – most of them survived (upgraded) until the end of the game with some decent unique promotions.

The King difficulty was a challenge early on, however after conquering Germany I knew I was going to win as I have experienced a couple of naval domination scenarios. The threat I was expecting from Korea never materialised which was both a relief and a disappointment. The Turtle ship would have been very nasty to deal with in numbers. This lack of threat is probably down to the difficulty level as well as their decision not to expand.

Path to Glory:

I expanded early with 3 cities on the home island. I met Germany and Korea quite early on. I met a number of hostile city states. I expanded onto the island to the west with a fourth city. I began to ally with Kabul on that island. I initially focused on a trireme fleet to secure trade routes and deal with barbarians.

For the first couple of eras I was experiencing issues with happy-capping due to limited luxuries. I was able to found a religion and was therefore able to counter this to a certain extent with Pagodas and happiness buildings.

I had initially decided to attack Korea as I felt their Turtle ship would be very difficult to deal with in the future. However, Germany was becoming more of a threat. Berlin was beginning to pump out wonders and I felt Germany could snowball if left unchecked. Indeed, I felt capturing Berlin was key to the entire game.

I had access to iron on my home island so I constructed an army of 8 Kris swordsmen (upgraded to long swordsmen) and five trebuchets. I also expanded the fleet with more triremes. I landed my forces south of the Berlin river to mitigate counter-attack. Berlin was quite strong at this point and was able to destroy some units. Germany's army focused on Makassar to the south and was destroyed. I was able to push on and capture Berlin fairly quickly. After consolidating the army I captured Hamburg and Munich.

I expanded the navy with four Galleass and proceeded to conquer Busan and Seoul. After conquering both Germany and Korea I felt confident of overall victory. A general expansion followed, focusing on generating a strong home economy. I focused on alliances with mercantile city states to control happiness and the world congress.

By this time, Spain and the Netherlands had been engaged in a long war that was to last uninterrupted until the end of the game. I took advantage of this distraction and proceeded to eliminate all other rivals before concentrating on them. Firstly I conquered France as their culture / tourism output was becoming a threat. I launched a two pronged attack – the navy took Orleans while the army conquered Paris. Quickly after this followed Jeonju – a size 19 city, Russia and eventually Sweden using only the navy.

I expanded the navy with many frigates and attacked the two remaining Netherlands cities from east and west. I placed the army in the south part of the island to deal with any Spanish counter-attack. Shortly after I used the navy to capture Madrid and finish the game. By the end of the game the navy consisted of 6 privateers, 3 submarines, 4 great admirals, 9 ironclads, 20 frigates and 2 caravels.

All of the AI failed to expand and once Berlin was captured the game was essentially won. Spain failed to conquer the Netherlands despite a massive military advantage and this distraction enabled me to conquer the smaller civs before the final campaign.

 

[FritsF1]

Turn 248 domination victory

- How useful was your UA?

It gave lots of happiness and luxuries to sell, so very useful on this map.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Hardly, Germany was ahead in science and I was able to steal one tech until the war with Germany started.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

It helped a lot. On a Pangea map the UA would be useless.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

I made a stupid mistake: just before finishing NC I build a new city (didn’t check if NC was finished) It delayed NC for 18 turns. But this was fine, only Germany was ahead of me in points and science. On a higher difficulty level this kind of mistakes would be more problematic. Since I didn’t really need the city states on this level, I largely ignored them. Building wonders was possible so I build the Great lighthouse and the Great wall (I didn’t need it but didn’t want de AI to have it).

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?

First full Liberty then commerce and exploration opener and onto rationalism (as much as possible before the game ended). Sadly the game ended before I could choose an ideology, I would have chosen autocracy.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

First rush to libraries and NC, then go for frigates as fast as possible. When frigates became available I build as many as my iron allowed. I almost only used frigates and some privateers for all the conquering. The plan was to upgrade them to battleships as soon as possible so I stayed science focused but I never came to that.


- What did you think of the map and settings?

Usually I go for a peaceful victory, a DomV was a nice change, it was fun.

 

[FritsF1]

I've played the first 100 turns on this one several times, trying to figure it out. If I ignore Germany and go after Korea first, Germany declares war on me. If I build too many wonders while waiting to research Compass, Germany declares war on me for settling in lands he considers his. If I just build a couple of wonders and then build military (even useless melee units; they still make good cannon fodder to protect my ranged units) Germany still scolds me for settling too close but stays friendly until I'm ready to declare war.

In my game Germany also was the biggest problem. I build a city on the island to the NE of them and they really didn’t like that. I got denounced by Bismarck very soon and really did not want to go to war before I was ready. I bribed Germany to go to war with Korea to keep them buzzy. When frigates became available I build as much as possible (8 I think) and declared war. First I killed the German fleet, then I moved as much frigates as possible in range of Berlin and retreated the damaged ones to heal, with so much frigates they could be replaced by healthy ones. It probably helped that some German units where fighting in Korea. Even after razing a German city and capturing Berlin and leaving them with 2 cities, Germany stayed tech leader for most of the game.

 

[raider980]

Dom Victory T282. It was a fun one. I've never really gotten to use Kris Swordsmen much, they're awesome. I had plenty of iron so I built a lot of them. And even if you don't battle with them before upgrading them, you can still get the unique bonus as Muskets, I didn't expect that. Most of my bonuses ended up being acting like a great general so I had a ton of GG running around. Even the negative ones I got weren't really a negative. The worst was taking damage when ending a turn in enemy territory, so I just left them garrisoned.

How did you take Berlin? I'm about 230 turns in, and I finally just captured it. There is only one safe tile to bombard it from with a 3-range ship, and the city one-shots anything that gets close. So I started sacrificing caravels so my frigates could attack 3 at a time w/o getting killed, and that's how I sacked it. (I didn't even try with galleasses like I had planned because Berlin was 38 strength already.)

Like everyone else, Germany was the main threat in my game. I took him out second though so he didn't get very far. Like you said, Berlin was in a good defensible location. So I took Munich first, which was to the NE of Berlin. Then I landed my Kris Swords and XB and Berlin went down fairly easily (mine was only strength 29 or so when I took it though).

Range 3 Galleas and Frigates are so OP its funny. The AI can't do a thing against them. That's why I usually take range first on ships. I first went for Korea since they were close and weak. Plus, they built a city on that one tile Cow island to my west and it was in the way. I had to leave a unit on that tile the entire game after I razed the city because SeJong kept trying to send settlers to it. Right after I took Seoul, Germany attacked with a big fleet of Triremes. So he had to be next.
Takedown order:

• T142 Seoul with Galleas and Triremes.
• T192 Berlin.
• T212 Madrid with range 3 Galleas and Frigates.
• T233 Amsterdam.
• T257 Moscow.
• T269 Sweden.
• T282 Paris. Yes, Napoleon, I saved you for last.

- How useful was your UA?

• UA is awesome. Three cities with 2 unique luxuries guaranteed are amazing. I founded cities on the island to the east and the two to the south. I made a big error and my second settler that went to the south island got captured by barbs. But luckily no one else freed him until I could get some troops down there so I got him back.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

• Stole quite a few techs from Germany since he was the science leader for most of the game.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

• Indonesia and Archipelago is awesome. Allows you to take full advantage of the UA.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

• Being King, I didn't focus on science at all, just military. I didn't even take Rationalism at all nor research Scientific Theory.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?

• I was all over the place with SP. I went Liberty left side. Opened Tradition. Honor Left side, then right side to finish it out with 3 in Exploration somewhere in there. Ended up with 4 in Patronage and 2 more in Tradition since I didn't bother with Rationalism. Never made it to Ideologies.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

• After the standard Ancient Era techs I beelined Compass for Galleas and Iron Working for Kris Swords. I never even got Scientific Theory or Industrialization even though those two are usually gone after first.

- What did you think of the map and settings?

• Nice map with some interesting islands. Having enough iron was nice, without that, it may have been a pain.

Spoiler T282 Victory as Paris falls :

Spoiler Home Islands :

 

[fiddlesticks]

Turn 168 with Amsterdam Bay being the site of the final battle.

The map provided a super charged start with the 2 flood plain wheat tiles. To capitalize on that my build order was worker, granary, shrine for the gold/silver pantheon, then Great Library to take Optics and then Great Lighthouse to boost exploration. I built a trireme for scouting before getting a very early National College and then rushing towards Compass for Galleass' to begin the world conquest. The most important decision in this scenario was to not build a settler until much later (even then I bought it). It slows down the growth of Jakarta unnecessarily and impedes getting the NC up.

Once I had a small fleet of 3 Galleass and a Trireme, Seoul was easy pickings. After that the decision was to hit Germany or France next. After a few turns of healing, I went for Germany because of his cheeky move to settle a city on Jakarta's home island. Also the iron and salt were nice to have. Germany's cheeky expand (Cologne I think) and Berlin fell with the help of 3 Kris swordsmen (two of which ended up with the 20 damage de-buff and ended up being happiness fortifiers for the rest of the game).

Around this time I settled Suribaya for happiness reasons since it essentially gave +4 happiness by having both nutmeg and truffles, and the bit of extra culture from Mt. K was nice too.

After taking Berlin, Bismark gave me Munich in a peace deal with I razed. Napoleon popped by to offer me 3 GPT and Open Borders for salt. That was a bad decision on his part since it solved my problem of getting around Lyon with my fleet. I even brought two Kris swordsmen along to help with the siege, one of which had altitude training and double attack (3 movement plus a bonus for hills). That swordsman took a lot of city fire and did a lot of pillaging while the Galleass' battered down Paris. The other swordsman captured the city after a few turns.

Moscow was next and it fell pretty easily too. All the capital had weak defense in the 20-ish range or less. I got Navigation just after Moscow fell and quickly upgraded a to Frigates, some of which had range by this time. To make the trip around the bottom of the Russian continent up to Stockholm easier I destroyed Novgorod, defense 11, in one turn. One Frigate did 80+ damage in one shot! luckily there was one tile on the west side of the island in Moscow's borders, so that became the upgrade pit-stop on the way to Stockholm. During the Russian campaign I took Madrid with a second fleet built from Jakarta and Berlin. The entire navy converged on Amsterdam Bay around turn 165 and it fell in 2-3 turns.

- How useful was your UA?
Not bad - the one that ended up with 2 attacks was handy for the attack on Paris.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
No, but ended up killing a lot of enemy spies in the last 20 turns.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Great map for Indonesia. I realize now how Gajah Madah's special ability would be really handy for growth in a more peaceful scenario. As it was it did help with happiness a bit. I stayed in positive happiness for all but a handful of turns as a result, in combination with the happiness policies from Honour and Navigation.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
The Great Library and Lighthouse rushes were an easy decision on King.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Opened Tradition and took Aristocracy for the Wonder building to stack with the marble bonus, then Honour until Navigation opened. The early Great Admiral from Navigation was handy. I only just realized this game that you can warp GA's from port to port!

- What techs did you prioritize?
Writing, Optics, Philosophy, Masonry, Compass, Navigation

- What did you think of the map and settings?
It made for a fun game.

 

[beetle]

Once again, I played early then forgot about submitting. Got my game in under the wire though!

I really enjoyed the map, and took my time, T341 Dominative Victory.
Base score: 2073
Final score: 2438

Thanks very much!

 

[sebtanic]

I used to suck at domination, so I didn't participate in this particular TSG 199. However when I read this thread, I decided to give the strategy outlined by fiddlesticks above a try. And lo and behold I got a T164 domination win!

I followed his early build path to the letter, starting with worker, then granary, shrine, Great Library, Great Lighthouse. As for early wonders, I also built Oracle and Statue of Zeus.

Conquest order was almost the same as fiddle's, except I went after Netherlands before finishing off with Spain. Here's my timeline:
t120 Berlin
t127 Seoul
t138 Paris
t147 Moscow
t154 Stockholm
t158 Amsterdam (with 2nd fleet, consisting of just 4 level 1 galleases, 1 caravel, 1 kris, 1GG, and 1 GA)
t164 Madrid (combined the 2 fleets)

I got Navigation turn 163 and upgraded two galleases to frigates in Amsterdam, but never got around to using them as I won the next turn.

Again, massive kudos to fiddlesticks for sharing his strategy in such a detailled way!! I had a lot of fun in this game even though I'm obviously not submitting it. I'm just going to share a screenshot of the final turn here, if anyone is interested in the actual final save, let me know and I can upload that too.

(not sure why the background for the ships and sea ressoucres is white, it happened when converting screenshot from TGA to JPG)