TSG 247 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?

 

[letsgobucs]

That was a slog. Turn 293 science win. Thank god shaka can't figure out how to close games.

Started slow went tradition one city NC. Used trade routes to leech science. Around turn 110 Atilla DOWed me. Took everything I had to stay alive. Disbanded workers for gold. Then maxed out the credit card with Harold to upgrade my warriors and buy a CA. Pushed back and took atillas land with Greece finishing him afterwards. Then noticed Harold channeled his buddy William and went wonder happy. Meanwhile shaka cleared his continent made friends with me then denounced me. So I made friends with Greece who asked to go to war with Ethiopia. I figured why not these CAs are about to become useless. Took Ethiopians capitol. Then it was a hundred turns of fixing my empire fighting ideology pressure and amassing a huge army just in case which was not needed.

 

[Rhodro]

Science win at turn 275.
Didn't notice my merchant and engineer specialists were working too hard, so I missed 1 great scientist sadly.
After slapping Attila down, my game felt very slow. I marched my camel archers on Ethiopia capital, but they were not able to take it down, because he had great wall and my camels didn't have logistics yet. They had to come back when surprisingly beat down denmark attacked me. This gave me 3 of his cities.
I kept his capital and ribe in the corner, because it had coal I needed. Sold one of his cities to Ethiopia for like 25gpt.
When I slingshotted to radio and took freedom, eventually I took volunteer army. That army destroyed Greece when i upgraded them. I gifted most cities to Attilla that I ressurected from Greece. He was now my big buddy and gave me lots of gold the rest of the game. I kept Athens and kept my units around to keep beating down greece. He didn't want to give me money in peace deal so I never made peace with him anymore.

Shaka took over his continent, but only had like 50 techs when I won, he was nowhere near. His military score was multiples of mine though.

I think I also annexed Copenhagen, Ribe and Athens too late, they were puppetted for a while. I noticed when I annexed the science cost actually went down, and of course beakers went up because puppets have a penalty. I might have shaved off a few turns that way.

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
No peace with Atilla and Denmark early game, I needed their space and I don't want to be friends with aggresive traitors UU were useful with atilla and denmark. Failed to take Ethiopia because of Great Wall and no logistics.
- What technologies did you prioritize? Pretty standard science track after the opening actions. I did prio banking over printing press to try and get forbidden palace, but greece got it like 3 turns before me (even though i checked and he was not building it when i started), and sadly ethiopia stole tower of pisa. Later Shaka stole porcelain tower right before i finished. I think my early science was just a tad too low and thus i lost all critical wonders. No tower of pisa slows down scientist growth.
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Very standard, tradition, opener patronage, opener commerce, some rationalism, some freedom, get the cheaper buying policy from commerce, freedom till buying spaceship parts, finish rationalism and last policy was science from city states.
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
Self settled only 1 city, had 2 from atilla, 2 from denmark, 1 from greece. It's a cramped map, I don't see any additional good settling spots.

Spoiler :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

My third attempt resulted in a T269 science victory. In my play of the game, after I had overcome Attila, the game was actually quite easy (and a much quicker victory time should be possible). The other civs on my continent did not really pose any challenge (it helped that they picked silly policies like honor and patronage), so I could pick them off one by one with camel archers. After defeating Attila I had four cities, built my national college (a long build on a low-production capital), and I could build up a treasury for upgrading units, in part thanks to a declaration of friendship with Denmark. Here the bazaar is quite useful, as it allows you to sell spare luxuries for 240 gold.

I waited a little before attacking Denmark, because I wanted the declaration of friendship to expire first. Around T140 it was go time with around 5 crossbows, 6 camels, and some pikemen, and that was basically the army I needed to conquer the entire continent (I did also get a couple of units from Hanoi). Not a bad investment of hammers and gold! Denmark did not have much (I think I saw only one berserker), and next up was Greece. Alexander had some city states, but thankfully not that many, as Ethiopia crucially also had some allies, and I could pay Alex to war Ethiopia just before declaring on Greece myself. Funnily enough, just before declaring war Greece was allied to both Sydney and Wittenberg, but Wittenberg had a quest to tribute Sydney, and I managed to do that (I can't remember the last time I completed a tribute quest on Deity - or ever, indeed)! With the tribute gold and the quest completion I could ally Wittenberg, so Greece's only ally next to me was Sydney, and I could easily shoot down its units before heading north. Usefully, Greece had built both Sistine and Forbidden Palace for me, and after that the only civ that remained was Ethiopia, and he could not offer any resistance either.

The game was not without its challenges though. I could not get timely coal, which was disappointing since I had gone Industrialization first, and the lack of early ideology hurt even more when Shaka and Harald (I had left him a few random cities in the middle of the continent) joint declared war on me, so I lost 3 luxury deals and briefly went to around -12 happiness. I also tried to greed Leaning Tower by completing iron works first, but I lost it to Shaka. Later, I also lost World's Fair to Shaka by 100 hammers, again because I greedily tried to finish some public schools first. That meant in the end game I had to scrounge for culture by building archeologists, and a museum and broadcast tower in the capital.

Since this was no longer an 'official attempt' anymore anyway, I was a bit sloppy in the end game, and from the screenshot you can see I overshot the science quite badly, in part because I did not have enough gold to buy spaceship parts. I could have shaved off at least a couple of turns by selling some buildings, but I don't like to lessen my cities when the victory timing is not stellar to begin with.

In conclusion, I think if you survive Attila well in the early game (as I did in this attempt), you can still get a fast finish time, certainly under 250, maybe even around 230. However, if the early game goes poorly, I think even the strong players will struggle to win this one.

 

[Megalou]

Victory turn 317
When we left off both Denmark and the Huns had to go, Denmark to the bathroom and Attila to that same void where Melkor is to be chained after Dagor Dagorath.

I offered Denmark a way to channel all its surplus energy and they accepted after 10 turns. At that point the Huns had recently wiped out Greece and I was hoping the troops wouldn't be back yet. Denmark's contribution was mainly to keep Prague and Florence, deeply allied to the Huns, in check.

(Wagner playing.) Playing with only 2 cities up until turn 139 is unheard of, but the difficulty level had something to do with it. Capturing Helsinki and Attila's Court (and less importantly Le Havre in a later, pathetic attempt at comeback from Attila) was game-deciding, so I think I'll stop there. Explaining more would make a very conventional story. Speaking of conventional, the Zulu (38 cities) completed Manhattan Project but never got beyond conventional warfare, which was a kind of relief. As they got a piece of the Hunnic Empire and got too close for comfort, I fended them off and liberated Yerevan and Panama City. I was quite satisfied with the preparatory desert forts. For it was only a matter of when Zululand would declare war.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Science Victory turn 265

I canned my first try after 9 turns after flubbing a worker steal from Attila. This is my 2nd run.

1- 95g ruin
9- DoW Attila (worker)
15- Spearman ruin
18- Pop 2-3 ruin
21- Peace Attila (worker)
23- found Medina
28- DoW Harald 100g caravan (mostly stayed at war with one brief pause until Copenhagen conquered t136)
39- Ally Wittenberg (camp clear)
42- god-king pantheon
46- DoW Attila 100g caravan

Awasa and Attila's Court were really helpful puppets, constructing only useful buildings until I had the happiness to annex them. Turn 79 - NC, 85 -Oracle in Medina, 98 - HG in Mecca, 99 - Tithe and Religious Community.

Slowly wore Denmark down. Finally Camels came along and finished things off. I delayed the razing of Aarhus for one turn to buy a Trireme that pillaged a cargo ship and later many more Greek cargo ships. A good investment.

Mid-game: Focused on growing the five core Arabian cities. Hard built 2-3 public Schools, bought the others. Turn 188 - Freedom, 192 - Universal Suffrage, 194 -Win WF (Mercantilism), 206 Volunteer Army. Bought most Labs.

Late game: I occupied the last 50-60 turns with putting Shaka in his place. I re-took Paris (which I kept) and returned Orleans to the (ungrateful) French. Greece and Ethiopia attacked me once each during this period resulting in lucrative peace deals after a few turns of fighting. I was careful to avoid a great merchant in Mecca, and Attila's Court came through with its second GS, followed by the two Hubble (hard-built in Mecca) GS's to finish off the necessary techs. No issues with cash as all at this slow pace. I bought out most of Greece's CS allies and DoW'd him at the end to finally get Copper with a third citadel in a row (Brandenburg).

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Science Victory turn 265

I have to be honest, if I had expected anyone to smash the science victory turn, it would be you, @fiddlesticks (still the fastest one, of course). Guess in my (third) attempt I should have try-harded a bit more, by not buying all CS and by selling my labs at the end

I'm wondering though, why did you not keep going with the camels and conquer Greece and Ethiopia? In my game it certainly paid off, but I think I got lucky in the sense that they were doing really poorly for Deity-level play, so I only had a few units to kill each, and neither had built Great Wall.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Thanks @The_Black_Vegetable . I was just playing this one for fun, so I went for vendettas against the AI rather than optimal play!

 

[RuntyBassoon143]

Science Victory turn 280.

Probably could have shaved 10-20 turns with better micro-optimization but the game was literally over as soon as I met Shaka and it was hard to stay focused through the 80+ turns of clicking next. I had way too many units in the end because Shaka was spamming cities and units on my continent. He never did anything though and I could have just switched my production into research.

The key to the game is obviously to take out Atilla asap. On turn 75, I captured Atilla’s Court with my army of 5 CB, 2 chariots, plus a spearman and warrior. I made peace with him and let him keep his last city off in the middle of the desert. No idea what the AI was doing here as I only killed 3 Horse Archers.

From here I just sit and wait until unlocking chivalry turn 116 and upgrade my 6 chariots into camel archers. Now start marching towards Alex my camels and 2 pikemen. Send 2 camels and the 2 pikes to capture Corinth first, while the rest of the army softens up his defenses around Athens. Once Corinth falls, they swing around the left with 2 more camels and crush his walls. Turn 137 Athens falls and we make peace.

Now send my army towards Ethiopia. He still has warriors walking around at this point. I raze one city on the way to Addis Abba, which I captured on turn 155. We make peace a few turns later after I kill all his units and pillage all of his tiles. Thankfully he had spread his religion over the continent giving me crazy faith generation with his desert folklore plus mosques and cathedrals.

I was first to ideology and took order, but I don’t remember which turn exactly (somewhere around t165). I used a GS to rush. Industrialization and thanks my conquest I had instant coal and enough money to buy 3 factories.

Next up is Denmark. Again, now idea what the AI is doing as I never even see a berserker. Before beginning my offensive, I bribe Alex to declare war on him. Alex has two atrocious cities but somehow he’s still managing to make it difficult for me to ally city states. Sydney and Florence are both his allies and will do my dirty work. My camels mow down the Danish army in the hills between Aarhus and Copenhagen. Sydney captures and razes Aarhus while I take Copenhagen. On turn 178, Denmark is wiped out when Florence captures Kaupang and burns it down.

Next I march back to the north because I want to remove Alex from the game. He has all allied all of the city states on our continent except for Yerevan, Prague and Hanoi, despite having two of worst cities you’ll ever see. On turn 194 I capture his final city, Sparta. Half the tiles are snow and ice, and the rest are all tundra, but he built forbidden palace and colossus there so I keep it.

Shaka had reached my continent the turn before. We exchange 4 luxuries a piece and I sell him another 2 a few turns later. We remain friendly almost the entire game until the very end when he denounces me. Thanks to him, and without Alex poaching my city states,
I never have happiness problems again and can just keep pushing growth.

Turn 195 - finish electricity and buy 3 hydro plants.

Turn 234 - complete world’s fair (1st place) and use free policy to take the reduced purchasing cost. I already have Skyscrapers and Big Ben, and am able to buy research labs in all 7 of my cities. This combination allows me to buy whatever I want for the rest of the game.

With the finisher for Order I use the GE to build Hubble, and I bought 2 GS and 2 GE with faith. The engineers were used to rush the last two parts.

 

[Megalou]

and I bought 2 GS and 2 GE with faith.

I just detest the way a Great Prophet is eventually bought automatically even if ”Remind me later” is selected. Is there any way around this that doesn’t involve remembering to buy a GS or GE or something else now and then to avoid it?

I am aware that storing faith for millenia before you can even buy GEs or GSs would be unbalancing.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I just detest the way a Great Prophet is eventually bought automatically even if ”Remind me later” is selected. Is there any way around this that doesn’t involve remembering to buy a GS or GE or something else now and then to avoid it?

I am aware that storing faith for millenia before you can even buy GEs or GSs would be unbalancing.

There may be a workaround, but I've never tried it myself (I may have seen it on a Babayetu stream): if you place a civilian unit in all of your cities, like a worker or a stolen missionary, and then select "automatically purchase a missionary" (or inquisitor), then it may try to use the faith for a purchase, but fails because there are no cities to buy it from. Perhaps someone can confirm whether this actually works?

 

[Megalou]

There may be a workaround, but I've never tried it myself (I may have seen it on a Babayetu stream): if you place a civilian unit in all of your cities, like a worker or a stolen missionary, and then select "automatically purchase a missionary" (or inquisitor), then it may try to use the faith for a purchase, but fails because there are no cities to buy it from. Perhaps someone can confirm whether this actually works?

Cool. Yes, I remember once thinking ’’now why isn’t anyyhing bought’ and I had to move an inactive worker out of the capital. It was just before the time of railroads , when workers often have little to do. So it probably works and even sounds a little bit exploitive compared to the great prophet misery. That’s great with a lower case g and a lower case p.