TSG 220 After Actions Thread

I won a domination victory on turn 285. I have been trying to find a balance between building infrastructure and units for domination victories lately, so I'll list my actions in chronological order. I am looking forward to seeing what order you guys did things in.

Turn 0: I chose to settle in place, as the desert in the north made me nervous to move in that direction, and the adjacent deer was a nice starting tile to work. Also, I wanted the river system in the south to be in workable range as soon as I had civil service, so having it in the 1st and 2nd rings was nice.

Turn 50: By this point I had built my cities and gotten the Sun God pantheon. It was clear that the start contains a lot of growth in the capital, combined with a mountain for an observatory. Since it looked like I was going to be able to get dynamite very early, I chose to focus on infrastructure at least up to universities. I also had 5 workers at this point, most of which were stolen from Pedro and La Venta, and one from Lhasa via the barbarians.
. 8930_20230506122421_1.png
Turn 84: I kept stealing from La Venta and building workers, so at this point I had 9 of them. This is also the turn I finished the National college.

Turn 120: All of my universities were up, and I was making 187 science per turn. I had founded my own religion in the meantime, with Tithe and Religious Community. After a quick detour to get an observatory in my capital, I was going to focus on getting dynamite.

Turn 157: I finally got dynamite, after bulbing two scientists. My science per turn was at 390. Earlier I had acquired La Venta using Diplomatic Marriage, to give me a good route to attack north. Still, Samsun looked like the best target for me at the time. What I had missed is that the Ottomans had built the great wall, which is changed in the mods I usually play with to no longer inhibit movement. This would cost me a few units down the line.

8930_20230506124843_1.png

Turn 193: I took Istanbul, after having taken Samsun, Konya and Vilnius. Because I did not want him to take it back, I made peace. I was on my way to flight, at 644 science per turn. However, it would be nice if I could take something else first, and Sao Paulo looked like a suitable target.

Turn 206: I had captured Sao Paulo and given it back to Pedro, making him a friend for the rest of the game. I was at -11 happiness though... This was my biggest problem for most of the game, being the only civilization that chose for autocracy. Istanbul had Alhambra, so I was not about to give up my Blitz paratroopers and Xcoms. In hindsight though, I definitely should have: I was already getting -22 happiness from public opinion, and it was about to grow to -34. On the bright side, I was about to win the worlds fair, which helped me get the happiness policies I desperately needed.

Turn 241: My happiness from public opinion had reached -39, but I was somehow able to stay at 0 happiness, and at around 1000 science per turn, I could afford to focus on units only. I had a fleet of 5 bombers and 2 fighters and was attacking Augustus, slowly pushing him back. I was not able to keep any cities at all, or my population would revolt, so I gave all of them to Pedro.

Turn 261: I had captured Rome and attacked Attila. This is the turn when I got stealth bombers, so things were about to accelerate. I was sitting at 4 happiness with an ominous -47 happiness from public opinion.

Turn 269: At -57 happiness from public opinion, having heard the cries of my people for centuries, captured Attila's court and built a number of Blitz Xcoms, I finally gave in and switched to Order. This gave me the happiness I needed to go on a capturing spree.

Turn 285: Using my stealth bombers and Xcoms, I took all remaining capitals. Unfortunately I had made peace with France to focus on Indonesia, but they folded in a few turns, meaning I had to wait to take Paris. Overall I think this game had a nice balance of infrastructure, middle game war and endgame war. This is definitely not the fastest possible time though: maybe going for more early wars leads to a quicker victory, or maybe sticking to a science strategy allows you to get stealth bombers and Xcoms earlier.

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Thank you Nizef for an exciting map and game. Deity Domination is, in my opinion, the toughest challenge in Civ 5. It requires a balance of development and warmongering and a knack to know when to really pivot into the conquest phase.

I ended up with a turn 247 victory, taking Paris last to seal the win. Here's a brief summary:

-Settled on Marble to speed up the National College and an early wonder.
-2 scouts, settler, 2 archers, library, settler was approximately the early build order.
-Pretty sad ruin haul - 80g, barb camp locations, map, and a scout->archer upgrade. On turn 27 I had this funny situation where I stole an Ottoman worker but had to flee in a weird direction, but ultimately got 60 faith from this ruin!

worker ruin.png


-turn 20 I bought a shrine for a pantheon. My scouting missed La Venta for too long so I missed getting a city-state only pantheon :sad:
-turn 23 got the sun-god pantheon
-LaVenta was my xp farming target.
-turn 46 bought Mt. Kailash in Salzburg
-turn 62 religion - tithe and pagodas
-turn 74 National College
-turn 83 first great general - used it for the gold by the coast. Much later another GG would pick up the silver.
-turn 86, built the Oracle in Vienna. Policies were full tradition, Commerce opener, full Rationalism and Autocracy mix and a few fillers at the end.
-turn 100 peace with LaVenta, education on turn 101

100.png


-Between turn 100 and 163 I took out Ankara, and eventually became friends with Suleiman (go figure!). His trade routes really helped in the early game.
-During this period I researched to Scientific Theory and then once the Public Schools were up rushed to Artillery.
-Also built roads east to Suleiman and West to Attila.

162.png


-Erdine had Temple of Zeus, Alhambra and another wonder, so it was a great city to take that first. Sadly, my super-scarcher (now a gatling gun) died in the assault. A statue was built in his honor in Vienna.

201.png


After easily taking Rio and Tenochtitlan with Artillery, Infantry and Hussars, Attila went down quickly with a second army of the same mix of units.

Attila gave me about 5,000 gold in a peace deal, so I bought Sydney and Buenos Aires and used them as staging grounds to take Jakarta and Paris. I took Jakarta and Batam first, but then took a peace deal and waited to upgrade rocket artillery and tediously fly some bombers (homebase -> Rome -> Buenos Aires -> western continent) to finish off Paris once the peace deal ended. Gajah had planes and a ton of units at the end.

247.png


All in all, I felt a little uneasy that I ended up as an autocratic Austrian leader taking Paris for the win, but on Deity you do what you have to :mischief:.
 
Thank you Nizef for an exciting map and game. Deity Domination is, in my opinion, the toughest challenge in Civ 5. It requires a balance of development and warmongering and a knack to know when to really pivot into the conquest phase.

All in all, I felt a little uneasy that I ended up as an autocratic Austrian leader taking Paris for the win, but on Deity you do what you have to :mischief:.
Really nice report of your game. I had to laugh out loud when I read your last comment (I know my humor has a dark side).
 
Thanks @Nizef. Sticking with the dark humour, I would have had no qualms if it was Moscow!

Moderator Action: Please let us keep current events and politics out of the game threads. Thanks. leif
 
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I finished my first GotM. I am very happy with the result. It was dominated from start to finish with only a minor inconvenience caused by the Ottomans during the Medieval.
It was probably my cleanest Deity game, having been played without all the gold related exploits and without bribes.

Bombers weren't enough so I had to get Stealth Bombers and XCOM for convenience and not worry about planes being intercepted and killed.
Until turn 300 I didn't capture any city, all conquest was done rapidly with the advanced units.

Policies: Tradition 6 > Honor 6 > Rationalism 6 > Freedom 10 > Commerce 3

I also did a bit of overkill at the end. I just care too much about my units and don't let them die easily, so only 3 combat units were lost during the game, 1 Pikeman, 1 CB and 1 XCom.
I could also enjoy the power of the Giant Death Robots which I think I never actually used in a game.

Spoiler :

t333_austriaDV.jpg


[/SPOILER
 

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T299 Loss to France getting a Culture Victory. First time I've seen an AI get a CV. And I found a new way for France to get a CV; build as many cities as possible and spam Chateau, I usually play him tall but wide worked in this game. Continuing from T100 Opening Actions:

T114 Married Lhasa, might end up being a great city.
T150 Said no to DoF with Brazil, never sure when to say yes and when to say no because I can't look up relationships when on the screen where they ask.
T171 Married Wellington for another coastal city and base to attack Atilla.
T186. First to Ideology, wow, not sure if I've ever been first on Deity before. Pick Order because recently played a game and took Iron Curtain and that free courthouse is super helpful in maintaining happiness while conquering the world.
T196. Finally capture a Hun city. What? A barbarian Lancer appears.

Barb Lancer.jpg


T203. Artillery. Its over now. Arty's are so op its barely fair to the AI.
T210ish. Monte asks to remove my troops from his borders. No sorry, this means war. Its before I really want to but don't want to anger the other AI by saying "just passing through" then break my vow. I ally Quebec City for 1000G to help against Monte.
T220. Capture Atilla's Court and peace out.

T220 Atilla.jpg


T240ish capture Rio. T250ish capture Tenochtitlan. T263 capture Rome after DoWing Atilla again.
T275 I mistakenly click to marry Sydney before I was ready and Napoleon asked about my troops on his border. I have to lie and say I'm just passing through because I can't give him first strike. Turns out I didn't do this soon enough because I didn't have enough time to stop France's CV.

Spoiler Ouch, this might not end well :
Army strength T275.jpg


T299. On the verge of losing Paris, Napoleon is victorious!

Army strength T275.jpg


A fun game! I thought I had it for awhile but wasn't paying close enough attention to Napoleon's culture. I didn't figure an AI would be able to get a CV on Deity. Interesting, in my game France was dominant and killed off Indonesia. But in the other games it seems Indonesia was the dominant one and France got wiped out. I wish that would have happened in my game; I don't think I've ever seen Gadah win a game so I think I'd have been able to do it. No other AI was close to victory. That's why I like comparing the same maps; what caused that completely different AI performance?

Spoiler Final Austrian mainland and northern frontier cities :
Final Austrian mainland.jpg
Final Austrian norther frontier.jpg
 
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I saw this challenge on reddit and signed up after completing my first ever deity domination win (my previous have always come from eking out a space race win). I could have been a bit more aggressive in the late game, perhaps, but I never really war that late so I lost a lot more units than I should have.

AustiraGOTM.jpg
 
I saw this challenge on reddit and signed up after completing my first ever deity domination win (my previous have always come from eking out a space race win). I could have been a bit more aggressive in the late game, perhaps, but I never really war that late so I lost a lot more units than I should have.
Great to see you contributing! If you are interested in other shared Deity games (outside GotM), you could check out the Strategy & Tips section. You will find several complete series such as the Deity Challenge Line-up (should be 43 challenges), Enjoyable Deity Games (over 160 challenges) and the newest series Quest for Glory, which only started recently.
 
won domination victory at 147T.
I've recorded videos of this game, and will post link here later.

Austria UA is extremely op on deity level. The core strategy is to produce cheap units, gift them to city states and let them upgrade for you.
By doing so, we can mass produce units at extremely low hammer cost, without need to research certain tech. You can also gift unit to far away CS to "teleport" them.

In this game, after I found nearby Mt. Kailash, I decide to use the fast expansion strategy. As Austria, we don't want to found too many cities ourself, so Liberty is not a good choice in this game.
Tradition is also not good choice for early warmongering strategy.
So the policies I adopt is Tradition opener + Honor right branch + Piety opener.
After granary and library, focus produce archers and spearmen, and gift them to city states with good quest.
Also found religion with One with Nature + Initiation Rites + Asceticism.

Diplomatic marriage with Kathmandu at 85T, getting 7 cb, 4 pikemen and 1 horseman. civs in this game don't like to research Civil Service, so city states upgrade their pikemen much later than usual.
Diplomatic marriage with Lhasa at 87T, getting 6 cb, 6 pikemen. We now have 2 large group of army thanks to UA.
Note that I deliberately avoid research Construction until now, to keep producing archers at 40 hammer cost. and we will not research Civil Service in our entire game.
We still have quite numbers of archers and spearmen at home, waiting to gift them to city state at the other continent.

reach Machinery at 105T. two annexed city states contribute almost half of our science output, which significantly speed up our tech speed.
Diplomatic marriage with Sydney at 113T, getting 4 cb. 4 pikemen and 2 trebuchets. By doing so, we can immediately attack France and Indonesia without need to embark our units.
Now we have 3 large enough army at correct positions, allowing us to win domination victory very fast.
 
BTW, my game crashed two times at last few turns. This never happened before to me, didn't now what happened two my game.
 
won domination victory at 147T.
I've recorded videos of this game, and will post link here later.

Austria UA is extremely op on deity level. The core strategy is to produce cheap units, gift them to city states and let them upgrade for you.
By doing so, we can mass produce units at extremely low hammer cost, without need to research certain tech. You can also gift unit to far away CS to "teleport" them.

In this game, after I found nearby Mt. Kailash, I decide to use the fast expansion strategy. As Austria, we don't want to found too many cities ourself, so Liberty is not a good choice in this game.
Tradition is also not good choice for early warmongering strategy.
So the policies I adopt is Tradition opener + Honor right branch + Piety opener.
After granary and library, focus produce archers and spearmen, and gift them to city states with good quest.
Also found religion with One with Nature + Initiation Rites + Asceticism.

Diplomatic marriage with Kathmandu at 85T, getting 7 cb, 4 pikemen and 1 horseman. civs in this game don't like to research Civil Service, so city states upgrade their pikemen much later than usual.
Diplomatic marriage with Lhasa at 87T, getting 6 cb, 6 pikemen. We now have 2 large group of army thanks to UA.
Note that I deliberately avoid research Construction until now, to keep producing archers at 40 hammer cost. and we will not research Civil Service in our entire game.
We still have quite numbers of archers and spearmen at home, waiting to gift them to city state at the other continent.

reach Machinery at 105T. two annexed city states contribute almost half of our science output, which significantly speed up our tech speed.
Diplomatic marriage with Sydney at 113T, getting 4 cb. 4 pikemen and 2 trebuchets. By doing so, we can immediately attack France and Indonesia without need to embark our units.
Now we have 3 large enough army at correct positions, allowing us to win domination victory very fast.
Sounds insane, looking forward to skimming through the vids!
 
While I was looking for some older GOTM challenges that might interest me, I came across this beautiful Austria start. I had never really made the Austrian UA work well, so I thought this might be a good game to try. I had vaguely heard of Austria strategies where you gift cheap units to CS and have them upgrade them, but I did not expect that would work as well as in colcs's game.

In my own game, I did marry three CS, but it was not too impactful on warring the AI. My game got off to a flying start: printing press T132 on three good cities, with more gold than I can ever remember having on entering renaissance. In the first screenshot I am poised to marry La Venta and Lhasa, with the intention of going into Brazil and then Aztec, because Monty was not doing too great.

Printing press.png


However, I got double war-declared by Rome and Ottomans, so I thought I'd go into Rome instead, while keeping a few units behind to defend from Ottomans. That did not go as well as I had hoped. Even though I had a whole bunch of units, they were not more advanced than Rome's, and he had a bunch of units too, of course (he had already killed Attila). In the end, I managed to capture two Roman cities, which I sold to Brazil, which Rome later re-conquered. I made peace with Rome, and focused on Ottomans instead, but I did not make any progress until Hussars and artillery.

The pace of the game continued to be good: T197 Plastics having first gone dynamite, this could have been a decent science victory timing! From that point onward, it was a case of rolling the AI, because they had nothing to stand against infantry, landship and artillery/rocket artillery. When conquering the other island, I was lucky that Indonesia (who had completely wiped out France) did not have planes yet, because my anti-air was a bit late. I married Buenos Aires that I had been gifting some units earlier to make the final push easier. My east army and my west army converged on Jakarta for a T235 Domination victory!

For social policies I went Tradition, one point Patronage, Rationalism and Freedom. I did consider going Autocracy, but for this game I wanted to make use of the unit gifting benefits from arsenal of democracy. The free foreign legions are also pretty good, those effectively took out Rome.
Austria.png
 
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