TSG 257 After Actions

[vadalaz]

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.

Quick links: Upload submission | Announcement thread | Opening actions

- Did you play peacefully or warlike?
- Were Aztec unique abilities useful to you?
- Which ideology did you pick?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[Nizef]

I decided to play this one outside of the competition. I mean Monty&Salt...

I had a mostly peaceful game. Early on, I stole a worker from William but we became BFF soon after. And then Mr. Khan came to visit with a sizable army of some 25-30 units on t110. Luckily I already got Xbows and Genghis mostly had outdated units, were it not for some Keshiks. Isabella was gone by t80 or so and Attila was out of the game roughly at t170.

I went for 3 city NC on t86 and planted Texcoco directly after this. I was actually very happy with Texcoco in the end. However, I should have settled a fifth city much earlier. Now I only settled it on t230, when it was clear (even to me) that my science output would not be more than 1100 per turn or so.

Religion: I got fourth religion with Earth Mother, Tithe, Pagodas, Religious Community and Itinerant Preachers.

Policies: full Tradition, full Rationalism and 8 in Freedom. I had 3 "filler" policies (due to the massive contribution by killing barbs and the troops of Genghis) and chose Patronage 1 and Aestethics 2. I wanted some culture wonders, because I thought I would be the only one going Freedom. This was also the case. Gajah and William went Authocracy and the rest of the pack went Order.

Wonders: Oracle, Sistine, Uffizi, Porcelain, Eiffel, Broadway, SoL and Hubble in the capital and (mostly for fun) Redentor and Neuschwanstein in Teotihuacan. The only failed try was for Artemis. However that went already on t31.

At the end I was one scientist short and thus I only launched on t277.

 

[sebtanic]

My game was quite short! I lost my capital to William, turn 102.

I settled Mount Kili, then DOWed Genghis when he settled a city in between, on the Gibraltar lake. I was able to take that city from him and raze another one further north, but stupidly neglected protecting my capital.

I even remember seeing William amass a large army, but I was too focussed on fighting Genghis so I promptly forgot. After the last few (lower difficulty) games of domination, I wasn't aware any more how quickly the AI will DOW you on Deity. Should have known better!

Side note: I annexed Genghis' Gibraltar city after completing NC, and found out I couldn't build Floating Gardens there even though it was on a lake. Who knew? Is this a bug?

 

[Nizef]

My game was quite short! I ost my capital to William, turn 102.

I settled Mount Kili, then DOWed Genghis when he settled a city in between, on the Gibraltar lake. I was able to take that city from him and raze another one further north, but stupidly neglected protecting my capital.

I even remember seeing William amass a large army, but I was too focussed on fighting Genghis so I promptly forgot. After the last few (lower difficulty) games of domination, I wasn't aware any more how quickly the AI will DOW you on Deity. Should have known better!

Side note: I annexed Genghis' Gibraltar city after completing NC, and found out I couldn't build Floating Gardens there even though it was on a lake. Who knew? Is this a bug?

The "Gibraltar" city you are referring to is La Venta, I believe. If you look closely, it is not on a lake but on the shores of a mini-sea!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

If you look closely, it is not on a lake but on the shores of a mini-sea!

Indeed! I actually managed to get Colossus there. I might post my report this evening (also out of competition of course), if I can get around to playing the last 20 turns or so.

 

[sebtanic]

The "Gibraltar" city you are referring to is La Venta, I believe. If you look closely, it is not on a lake but on the shores of a mini-sea!

Aw crap! Of course you are right hahahha! Thanks for pointing it out

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

When I first played this map a little over a year ago, I did so with a specific purpose in mind: how much culture do you really get from going honor? The conventional wisdom is that it is not worth it (because the final policies are too expensive), but still, I wanted to see the numbers, so I created this Reddit post about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/civ5/comments/18r8k6m/aztec_honor_a_christmas_investigation

Looking at the numbers in that thread, my initial game went a little bit better than this replay I just finished, where I won science on turn 243 (original game: domination T215). Two things did not go super well this game. First, completing honor before going Rationalism slowed me down quite a bit - not a shocking conclusion of course, you rarely read about the full honor science strategy ;-). The second problem was that I was not really making much use of my honor policies. Although I continually did some warring, I made very little real progress until I got a significant tech lead, and could use superior units to crash through the AI defenses. I find that often, if you want to make real progress with crossbows and knights on Deity, so need to invest in 'fodder units' to throw at the AI so you can overwhelm them quickly, and get all your ranged units in position ASAP. Otherwise, if you play cautiously, making sure not to lose any units, progress can be really slow, unless the terrain is very favorable, or the opponent is Ghandi. However, I was not prepared to keep building units from my cities as I still wanted infrastructure for the eventual science win. To make matters worse, as my units were busy skirmishing with the AI, I was not actually farming any barb camps.

My war progress was that I took (and kept) the closest Mongolian city Turfan with composite bowmen around T115 (a kill made possible by Genghis being distracted by the wars with everyone else), though shortly after I made peace, because I feared I would be unable to make quick progress, and I did not really want his cities anyway. So, I went west to the Netherlands, who had Machu Picchu, Notre Dame, and, annoyingly, Great Wall. I captured Amsterdam turn 165 with crossbows and muskets, and then did some minor warring with China and Indonesia on the former Dutch borders, while really waiting for infantry.

At this point, it became clear that my game was not going to be very quick. My timing was mediocre (plastics around T190, with rationalism finisher), and any further conquests would struggle to have a positive impact on the final finish time. Also, by going honor instead of Patronage, I had lost control of congress, and failed to stop Arts Funding. At this point, Indonesia had all cities states except four of mine, so I had to take him out (annoyingly, he had built Forbidden Palace in an expand, so I had to keep that too). The final city I captured and kept was Madrid (Chichen Itza, Mausoleum, Petra), but by the end of the game it was only 11 pop, so not really worth in terms of science output. I more or less kept warring until the end for culture and gold, and to liberate some city states that Mongolia had captured (annoyingly he had built Big Ben in Brussels, but I liberated it anyway).

At the end of the game I had tradition, honor, rationalism, freedom 6, and commerce 3.

 

[qontroL]

When I saw the spawn I expected this might be a great spawn to snowball on, and I wasn't wrong. The game snowballed even harder than I expected, this spawn was definitely crazy. Honestly the game felt like I was playing on King difficulty.

Early game was rather relax, I had a quick war with the Mongols to defend my territory as they had settled too close to me. (I was able to build ToA, Oracle, Hanging Gardens very early)
When the world congress was founded I proposed the World's Fair, which I won 1 turn after researching Radio, with 2 Great Writers saved up, and as a result I ended up getting a very quick start in the Order tree.
I decided to push for Arti/Cav since I noticed I was already leaping far ahead in tech, and I was able to grab Iron Curtain right about at the same time as getting Arti, and I used this powerspike to lay waste to Carthage and The Netherlands, taking 3 cities from each, including their capital and many Wonders.
At that point the game was basically over, but honestly I was a bit tempted to go for a different victory condition as I was so far ahead I could've easily won any victory type. But since the challenge was a Science Victory I mostly just phoned it in during the late game, playing it pretty chill and mostly just grabbed whatever I felt like grabbing, even if it didn't help me, no civ ever came anywhere near my tech so they all just stayed away from me. I also got the International Space Station, mostly for the memes.

I ended up with some minor annoyance as not a single Civ went Order ideology so I had to fight off some happiness issues (at one point I had 39 unhappiness from Ideology), but luckily I had enough surplus happiness to stay afloat, just barely.

I ended the game with the Tradition tree filled out, 2 in Honor, Rationalism filled out and Order just about filled out.
My cities had the following Wonders: Kremlin, Sydney Opera House, Forbidden Palace, Statue of Zeus, Taj Mahal, Louvre, Machu Picchu, Borobudur, Globe Theatre, Parthenon, Stonehenge, Terracota Army, Uffizi, Brandenburg Gate, CN Tower, Cristo Redentor, Eiffel Tower, Hanging Garden, Hubble Space Telescope, International Space Station, Neuschwanstein, Oracle, Porcelain Tower, Temple of Artemis.


Some pictures:

Western half

Eastern half

Demographics, first time having my population reach 9 digits as far as I can remember, also the tech difference was rough, I think I was 2 full eras ahead most of the game

Final turn, was my first game playing as Aztecs

Thank you for the challenge! It was really quite a fun map to play, though playing Aztecs on a lakes map definitely felt like cheating.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Science victory turn 211

Thanks for a great map @The_Black_Vegetable and @vadalaz!

The early game for me went really well. I DoW'd William early on and stole a worker and pillaged his horses (out of city bombard range). He kept sending workers every couple of turns to repair them and my Jaguar sat two tiles away and sent a steady stream of workers (at least 5) east. I sent more troops to the area to contain barbs and was able to capture William's settler heading east and then plant a city in range of his silver, marble and horses. I stayed at war with him just long enough to get my first general that I then used to steal land right up to his capital, which I'd take later leading up to plastics.

Religion went well too, with the city state faith getting early earth mother, and a ruin giving 60 faith. I ended up with religious community and some other good tenets.

No problems in my game with Genghis or Attila. In fact I bribed Genghis and Dido to DoW William around turn 145 so we became friends after capturing the capital. I took loans from Genghis to build labs and then DoW'd him shortly after to liberate La Venta and boost faith. By the time that war ended he gave me Brussels in a peace deal that I liberated to boost culture. I started a few other no-fighting late wars once my army score was good to boost gold for the end game. Happiness was seldom a problem, and I might have done better to capture another city before plastics (turn ~177).

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Nice finish time, @fiddlesticks . Did you open honor, or just go tradition?
I did start the map a few times more to see if I could get a really quick science time (instead of going full honor), but every time I did not open honor, I struggled with the barbarians. Worker stealing in general was more of a pain, because I could not peacefully camp a worker steal location, as my unit or the AI was being harassed by barbarians, or I would get horsemen come out of nowhere and pillage all my tiles and trade routes.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Thanks @The_Black_Vegetable ! No, I went tradition into commerce, full rationalism. I did build and buy a lot more units than usual early on - probably 4-5 Jaguars, a few archers and a scout upgrade. I also scouted a lot slower than usual, instead keeping the units close to home (at turn 100 I haven't ventured far from home). I built a few altitude trained Jaguars later to fill in the map.

 

[Rhodro]

Just launched at turn 233.

My game was slowed down because after capturing amsterdam (chitzen itza, great wall, pyramids), my army of promoted jaguars and crossbowmen went to carthage. She was alone, no friends, and I wanted her cap to produce some science for me. I was amazed that she kinda wrecked my army with her units that where behind me in tech. Later I realized she also had godess of protection. My army was almost decimated and I pulled back some scraps.

I started a 2nd army with foreign legions and artillery to attack mongolia. I liberated all the CS and sold his other cities to the huns for a lot of gold per turn.

The timing at the end was really difficult. I had major trouble getting the tenet to buy spaceship parts and finish rationalism. I had to faith bought engineer the sydney opera house to get a final free policy. I bought 1 great scientist with faith. Faith income was not that good this game.

I hard built hanging gardens, forbidden palace, eiffel tower, brandenburg gate, big ben, hubble, statue of liberty in capital. And oracle and neuschwanstein in the city next to mt. kili.

I think i might have been faster if i went for top of tech tree first in the endgame before going xcom tech. I would have gotten sydney opera house sooner to buy parts. And I wish my warring was better this game, could have had a bigger impact.

Spoiler :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Later I realized she also had goddess of protection

It always feels like a bit of a joke when the AI picks this pantheon first 50% of the time (of course, the AI can get away with it, because they don't need a faith-generating pantheon to get a religion), until you have to fight into it. Of course, in case you have infantry and the AI are still on muskets it does not matter, but for crossbow warfare it can be pretty painful.

 

[fiddlesticks]

@Rhodro I like how the Sydney Opera House juts out into the lake next to Tlateloco

 

[Rhodro]

It always feels like a bit of a joke when the AI picks this pantheon first 50% of the time (of course, the AI can get away with it, because they don't need a faith-generating pantheon to get a religion), until you have to fight into it. Of course, in case you have infantry and the AI are still on muskets it does not matter, but for crossbow warfare it can be pretty painful.

Yeah that's exactly what happened. She had a crossbow in her capital, with godess of protection, and sometimes she bought her unique horse unit. Then my highly promoted blocker unit gets ranged shot twice and then finished off by 2 of her horse. It was very surprising to me and 2 or 3 of my blocker units got surprise killed that way, then it's game over.

@Rhodro I like how the Sydney Opera House juts out into the lake next to Tlateloco

Haha nice spotting. It got fresh water

 

[elliott612]

I don't usually play with Montezuma, and I don't win a lot of deity games. This one was obviously set up well with lakes and such, so it did feel like playing on an easier level, but it was a TON of fun! I really liked having two natural wonders in my borders with just 3 cities as my core. I battled the barbarians early on, but didn't really farm them or anything, and played peaceful until I had significant technological advantage over everyone. Then it was insane how much culture I could produce through war. I tripled my per turn output, especially once I controlled the skies. I know it's not the optimal strategy, but I always fill out patronage and go for CS allies on deity games, so it was fun to liberate some of those from the Mongols and be an avenging angel for freedom against the autocratic Carthaginians. I pictured Aztec pilots dropping bombs on scattering troops below saying "yep, more sacrifices for the gods! It's really good for our society!" It sure filled out the culture trees quickly!

 

[StefanosG80]

Turn 248 victory here, fun game. No war at all for me... Congratz to @fiddlesticks 211 is very quick WP!

 

[Megalou]

Yeah I just finished (t248), I managed to avoid any aggression the whole game, so never needed to build up much of an army... Mongolia never went for Ormus, they were at war with Carthage and were trying to march through my lands to get to them. I was a little concerned at one point but bribed them to war someone else and once I was ahead in tech I never felt threatened.

That's funny, because I was declared on several times, IIRC twice by Indonesia, once by Dido and Isabella and once by the Huns. Zürich came close to capturing La Venta (which I had acquired from Mongolia) but I managed to keep the melee units away. Was I thus the only one to seriously use galleasses and frigates in this game?

The early mistakes described in the first spoiler thread, and the tussle with Mongolia where I took over La Venta - and perhaps the later wars as well - delayed my victory almost until turn 300.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Was I thus the only one to seriously use galleasses and frigates in this game

I built one galleas, which I later upgraded to a frigate. I was on the offensive myself most of the game, though, and I think only Mongolia declared on me in the late game.

 

[raider980]

T267 Loss, Resignation. Genghis coming at me from the north and on T267 Wu DoW me from the west after taking out William. No hope to survive against the onslaught. I might not have even been able to hold off Genghis by himself.

I had bribed Genghis 5 or so times already to attack someone else but I should have bribed him once more. I even considered it the turn before he attacked but I didn't think it was necessary though because we were brothers in arms - I picked Order after he did just so he wouldn't attack me. He had even congratulated me and said he wanted to talk about our 5-year plans. But then on T248 he broke the brotherhood and attacked. I don't think I've ever been attacked by someone of the same ideology; they usually start loving you quickly. I had spent a lot of time building up my eastern defenses against Dido, who was Autocratic. I built a series of roads and forts and think I would have been safe from her (see T248 screenshot). I may not have won the game but I would have had a good chance; I was 4th in science.

I was doing ok against Genghis but he did have a lot of troops coming for my capital. I would have continued; I had bombers and think I could have fought him off. But when Wu DoW'd it was hopeless to continue. I had no troops in the west to defend against her so it would be a route. It was fun trying to survive this far though.

P.S. I wish I'd have built a city on the Rock of Gibraltar lake because Genghis' battleships were tearing me up. No defense against them so I had to stay 4 tiles from the lake just so my troops would have a chance. That meant I couldn't counterattack. Even bombers don't do that well against Battleships, they were getting major damage attacking them.