TSG 237 After Actions Thread

[Nizef]

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state your victory/loss date (preferably in the post title) and describe your path to glory in this post! Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game.

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
- What technologies did you prioritize?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[fiddlesticks]

Science victory turn 231

Technology: I went straight to optics, then mining and writing.

Build order: monument, worker, shrine, granary, trireme, trireme, settler, settler, great library. I was lucky compared to @The_Black_Vegetable 's run, because great library finished turn 72.

War: with 2 triremes scouting the local area together I got tributes from Kathmandu (x2), Zanzibar, and Ormus, but not Buenos Aires on the hill. Kyzyl and Mogadishu netted two worker tributes and a regular worker steal from Kyzyl. I generally declared war as soon as I met a civ and took gold in peace deals, sometimes in exchange for luxuries. Much later I captured Lisbon with a few wonders.

Policies: full tradition, open patronage (98), rationalism (130 via Oracle) plus three policies, commerce to mercantilism, finish rationalism and freedom for ideology.

Religion: religious idols (first pantheon), then tithe and divine inspiration, then pagodas and reliquary.

Wonders: great library (72), ToA (88), NC (97), hanging gardens, and then spam as many as possible prioritizing CS quests.

Overall strategy: ensure safe sea trade routes, buy cargo ships or prioritize building them, bully all AI's early and use gold for growth, settle a 5th city late near great barrier reef and capture Lisbon about 15-20 turns prior to hitting plastics (187) to boost late game science. The Lake Victoria Island was a nice spot with tons of fish that I wish I had planned to settle earlier - it would have been a great city. Finally, managing great people generation to sequence the last one in Kyoto (had to de-select a few science slots for a few turns).

I really liked the idea of scouting with a swordsman to get an early samurai. I detoured to steel after education (124) instead, but this was a great idea!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Impressive timing by @fiddlesticks , again.

I managed a T251 science victory in the end. From about the Renaissance onwards, I focused on getting my gold and gpt up, with the intention of buying my science buildings. Pre-renaissance, I had opened both commerce and had put two points into Patronage (saying that 'out loud', I should have aimed to enter Renaissance earlier), so the engineer I (intentionally) generated from Temple of Artemis was for Big Ben, and I could buy 4 out of 5 public schools on the turn of entering Scientific Theory (which I did with a first scientist bulb).

I did the same for entering plastics: one bulb, to buy all labs instantaneously. By this time, it was already turn 214, so I was not going to threaten T231. I had read somewhere that between plastics and a science victory should be around 30 turns, with 'correct' play, so in that sense I wasted around 7 turns in the end game. One thing I did wrong was forgot to build trading posts. This '30 turns between labs and victory wisdom' includes converting your farms to trading posts, however by the time I remember about trading posts, I had deleted all of my workers.

Another small mistake was to generate a second merchant (the first one in the Mausoleum city was hard to avoid), but more importantly I think my religion game was sub-optimal. In general, I always go tithe, production and pagodas when I can (although I don't care about pagodas that much). In general, I think that is a good choice for having a strong game, but for this particular game, production was not as crucial, and I noticed Fiddlesticks often chooses divine intervention instead. In this game I only bought two scientists with faith, and I even ended up buying two engineers with faith - one for Statue (I noticed Fiddlesticks just hard-built it in an expand), and one for Hubble (because I was too late to build it, and I was not going to get enough faith for another scientist). So with a better religion game I could have bought at least one more scientist with faith, maybe even two; that should have put me closer to the '30 turns'.

Perhaps next time I will manage to play more accurately, and give the fastest players more of a run for their money

 

[fiddlesticks]

Nice write up!
I hard built Hubble in Kyoto, and SoL was not necessary in the end because I was picking up 2nd and 3rd patronage policies before the game ended. I generally switch cargo ships to production around plastics.
Because of that and solid religion I bought 4 faith great scientists.
If I had made the decision to expand earlier it would’ve been a better choice. If I had Lisbon and Kagoshima up earlier it would’ve shaved 5-10 turns.
Sometimes in Civ I get into a cruise control mode and miss important decision points.

 

[Axolaan]

I got my first 4 cities and the national college up on turn 102. Going into the renaissance, I timed it so I would finish acoustics on the same turn as I would build the Oracle and bulb a writer for the rationalism opener. Unfortunately Maria got it when I had 1 turn left to build.

I settled a fifth city next to Lake Victoria on turn 170. In hindsight I would have been better off taking an AI capital or two, even though they are fairly weak on Prince. Still, despite it being far away enough that I couldn't send it food via trade routes, it did pretty well and paid for itself in terms of science within 20 turns.

My religion was removed from my capital by an AI prophet, and unfortunately none of my cities had a dominant religion by the atomic era, so I didn't buy any scientists or engineers this game.

 

[sebtanic]

Won turn 282 (Science Victory).

I decided to play peaceful after all. Except for England, which I DOWed because they kept sending their prophets to convert my capital even after I told them not to. I razed one of their expos, then Mongolia razed another one. Now they had only London left, and we made peace.

However they didn't learn, and when yet another prophet appeared next to my capital I decided to wipe them out. Took London easily with a few Frigates and Ironclads, then sold it to America. I still got chain denounced by everyone except Mongolia as a result.

It didn't matter much as I was already far on my path to bulbing myself to victory though. I think I had 11 natural Great Scientits standing around in my lands, plus the two from Hubble and two I bought with Faith. The very first GS I used for an Academy, the rest I just fortified to use near the end.

In the beginning I played 4 city Tradition, then settled a 5th city on the southern island very late when I noticed that I had far too much happiness.

 

[raider980]

SV T 335

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
Played peacefully. Except one war with Ram because he sent a prophet to try and convert my cities. The Samurai was awesome this game! I built so many fishing boats without having to queue up a work boat in the city; that was so nice to not have to waste hammers on those.

- What technologies did you prioritize?
After the sailing techs of early game I went straight for Industrialization to get an ideology. Then to Radio. Then to Hubble and the bottom spaceship part path to spaceship factories.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
After finishing Liberty, took a few in Patronage and Exploration until getting ideology. Chose Order of course with my tons of cities.

- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
Ended up with 22 cities, all self-founded. I settled them anywhere there were luxuries and/or multiple fish. I tried to get every single luxury in the game. I ended up getting them all except Pearls. After NC, I raced a settler toward the southern part of England's Island. I spy an English settler and I could take it; but I just block it; I don't want to weaken Liz against Genghis. When I found The Great Barrier Reef, I raced a settler there - Ram had already built a city on one of the islands in range of the GBR but hadn't expanded to it yet - I managed to settle a city and buy GBR. That's around the time I DoW Ram; debated taking that GBR city but since I had it already didn't bother. It took me until T130 something to find Lake Victoria - unclaimed and with 5 fish in range! So I bought a couple settlers and headed there immediately. I could have finished faster but I couldn't resist all those prime city locations; especially with our UA, the pantheon of God of the Sea, and Exploration, and Lighthouses, Seaports, etc. - we are a sea people after all. Here are screenshots of the Japanese takeover of the world.

Spoiler Blast Off :

Spoiler Japanese Home Islands :

Spoiler Great Barrier Reef :

Spoiler Lake Victoria and vacinity :

Spoiler Near Western Islands :

Spoiler City of Six Fish :

 

[Rhodro]

turn 260 science victory with 10 cities, 2 were the capitals of shoshone and huns.
I was swimming around with swordsmen to try get ruins upgrade this game but after like 15 ruins I only got 1 of them to upgrade lol. It did save me a few fishing boats on new expands but the core cities already many workboats built so that wasn't really worth much.
I took freedom and bought all spaceship parts with 3rd policy from commerce.

 

[Megalou]

Do the moderators mind telling us what the next civ will be so we can practice a bit?

 

[vadalaz]

The next game will be the Huns going for a domination victory on a Lakes map and King difficulty.

 

[Bemep42]

SV at turn 248.

Open tradition, built Great Library and NC in Kyoto then spam settlers with +50% from liberty

I expanded to 8 cities, later bought 2 more and later built 1 settler (in capital in 1 turn) for the great Barrier reef. As a result, 11 cities. Lake Victoria was the last wonder that I found after t200.

I played peacefully except for the situation when Chaka attacked my island towns south of his territory. After losing all the units, he gave me all his money.

Before I finished liberty, I open Exploration and 2 more policies - for +3 production and happiness, then open rationalism. At turn 187 I adopted Order after building 3 factories. later finished liberty. learned plastics at turn 223. finished rationalism (take satellites) On 241 I built the Apollo and got the last Scientist in Kyoto, on the same turn I accepted the Pioneers of Space. Over the next 7 turns, with the help of 7 engineers, I built the Hubble and 6 parts of the SS in Kyoto. 2 engineers (and 1 scientist) I got from faith. For That I built the Kremlin (244) and finished tradition. In the end, my science turned out to be stronger than I expected and I learned the last necessary technology on 246 turn. That is, I could have finished the game a turn earlier.

After the game, I tested building Hubble and getting the latest scientist at the same time. If the scientist is in Kyoto, you get 3 scientists at once, but if you turn off the scientist in Kyoto and try to get him in another city (also in one turn), then you get only 2 scientists from Hubble and that's it. I didn't know these mechanics, so I built Hubble (and the Pagoda) a turn later.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

@Bemep42 I think the great scientist generation is simply in the order of the cities. So the capital goes first, and if it generates a great person it increases the counter for the second city, and so on. Seeing as you got 3 scientists on one turn, the order within the city must be that the great people are generated first, and only then do you get great people from completing a wonder.

 

[billybgame]

So obviously still have a lot to learn about fast science victories. Know same thing happened in last few months that I inquired about. I have a hard time only building 4 cities. I ended up with like 11 cities.

Turn 399 science win. But how on earth can I be 175+ turns behind and over 100 turns behind many others? Love to know how I can make up that many turns. It's just kind of beyond my level of comprehension obviously.

I recall even in Civ 4, this was about the range of my Science wins. Not sure on turns but 1970s or later. I do use all my great scientists. But didn't have many early anyhow to plant.

Well, completely peaceful. Didn't even battle espionage that I can recall. Everyone started hating me by mid to late game though. After we were best buds up until then.

 

[zxcvbob]

Somehow I missed this one when it first came out. Science victory on turn 315. I played totally peacefully, which kinda seems like a waste when Japan is fun to warmonger with. Tradition 5 cities, and I spammed wonders but I tried to focus on ones that gave great scientist points and avoided a few that I really like (Great Lighthouse, the Mausoleum) because they give merchant points. I wasn't sure whether to settle Satsuma next to the mountain for an observatory or on the gold so 2 fish tiles would be in reach. I thought the extra food was more important so I settled on the gold. It still didn't grow as fast or as large as my other cities. Perhaps next to the mountain would be better and I could have dedicated the Colossus trade route to sending it food.

I want to try this again using Liberty even though I'm sure it won't be as fast.