TSG 258 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

- In what order did you take the capitals?
- How many armies did you have? What was their composition?
- Did you build libraries and NC, or go for illiterate conquest?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[qontroL]

I ended up forfeiting the challenge at turn 174. I have all the capitals besides Carthage and Constantinople, which are both at 1hp, but my attacking horses disbanded and it'll take 24 turns for my new horse to arrive to take the city and I can't be bothered. Domination Victory on a flat-earth map of this size took years off my life, dragging 60 units across 100 tiles is painful xd

EDIT: I felt obligated to continue going and see it through because momma ain't raise no *****

To some my screenshots will be quite hilarious, since I still didn't even research Civil Service. Science was not a focus this game for me since I figured that after researching Crossbowmen I didn't need it anymore.
I'm not used to playing against Prince, but in the early game I noticed the barbarians were completely out of control so I adjusted by strategy to use this to my advantage. This game was won through Faith alone, almost my entire army was created by Heathen Conversion as I pretty only made the Chariot Archers.
Allowing my unhappiness to drop into the double digits would occasionally provide me with multiple horsemen to counteract my army gradually disbanding over time. The goal was to finish before T200, sadly I missed the mark. The endgame was a bit of a drag.

I started the game off taking Korea/Morocco. After which I moved on to taking Siam/India. When I took Siam I noticed he was at war with China so I moved on to sweep China by themselves. After that the armies marched to Assur and Rome, all to close it out by taking Byzantine and Carthage in the end.
I realistically had 2 armies going, the composition of which were only Chariot Archers with the occasional Composite Bowman/Crossbowman before I got too broke to upgrade them, complimented by whatever unit Heathen Conversion provided to me.
Not a single Library was built this game.
I filled out the Liberty Tree, Peity up till Heathen Conversion and then I opened Honor in the end to find the camps near the enemy capitals

This game I walked away learning a bit lesson. If I want to use this type of strategy, I should start in the back and work my way towards me, not the other way around xd

T203 Domination Victory
Fun side-note; I built a road all the way from my capital to Rome

 

[fiddlesticks]

Domination Victory Turn 146

I built 7-8 pathfinders and upgraded 6 of them to Path-bows (one too late to be of much use). Two Path-bows went north with 4 Pathfinders (army group north), and 3 path-bows went south with 2 Pathfinders (army group south). North group took out Seoul, Sukothai, Rome and Carthage. Army group south took Marrakech, Delhi, Assur, Constantinople and Beijing. A catapult purchased in Seoul and some knights helped out with Beijing.

Policies were Honour (left side), Liberty (Great Scientist to rush Chivalry), then Honour (right side). Religion was not a big factor, but I took gold conversion, and religious community.

In total for ruins I took 6 pathfinder upgrades, 4 population, 2 culture, and 2 gold.

 

[qontroL]

Path-bows

Dang, looking at this I kinda wished I had tried doing this. Your way looks a lot more fun than mine was. I had no idea the AI would be this weak and when their cities did no damage it was a bit surprising.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Domination victory T183.

I had no idea the AI would be this weak and when their cities did no damage it was a bit surprising.

I kind of suspected Prince AI would be weak (although they did manage to annoy me by stealing some wonders), but I suppose the skill is knowing how much army you need to bring. @fiddlesticks 's armies sound really minimalist, I had not known that was possible either.

In my game I actually had 7 pathfinder-crossbows, but they all went together into one south army (in the opening thread I mentioned I would go Korea after India, but then I noticed Byzantium was actually closer - and she stole my Temple of Artemis!), together with one pathfinder and a gifted pikeman that was struggling to keep up. While the first army was travelling south, I did some simming in my three core cities, until I had everything I needed to build knights from my Petra city: barracks, armory, forge, and Alhambra. My army of knights then went west for the north half of the map, together with some support crossbows and trebuchets/cannons, but they were left behind after Siam.

After taking Korea, I bulbed three scientists to get Comanche riders. This was fun, although of course you don't need march+blitz cavalry to defeat Prince AI. However, I can never resist the temptation to try and build big cities, especially if the land is nice as it was in this game. As mentioned in the opening threads, I was hoping for a nearby Kilimanjaro, because it was really a very long walk to Rome and Carthage. Also, it is so cool to get maximum 4-movement crossbows.

 

[sebtanic]

Won turn 190.

Got Military Science the same turn, with Oxford. So no Comanche Riders.

I built 3 cities, and they sent each other food caravans. I also made a truckload of Pathfinders, most of whom were promoted to Comp Bows asap, and later to Crossbows.

My path to glory:
t90 Seoul
t115 Marrakech
t116 Assur
t133 Delhi
t138 Sukhotai
t170 Rome
t175 Constantinople
t185 Beijing
t190 Carthage

My first army captured Seoul, Assur, Sukothai, Rome, and Beijing. The second went south to Marrakech and Delhi, then west all the way to Carthage. For that last city they were joined by some fast units from the 1st army.

After taking Rome I took Arpinium in the peace deal, because it had Kilimanjaro. Not sure if it helped my win time to send some units over there, but XBs promoted from Pathfinders with Altitude Training are fun. In hills they get up to 4 moves.

Policies: Full Liberty, full Honor, 2 in Commerce, then Rationalism opener.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

After taking Rome I took Arpinium in the peace deal, because it had Kilimanjaro

Oh man, I totally missed that wonder. I was hoping for 4-movement pathfinders, but instead I trudged along the map slowly. Still, I suppose the wonder was far enough away not to make too much difference in the finish time.

 

[sebtanic]

Oh man, I totally missed that wonder. I was hoping for 4-movement pathfinders, but instead I trudged along the map slowly. Still, I suppose the wonder was far enough away not to make too much difference in the finish time.

It may even have slowed me down, because my units had to take a detour to get there. Otherwise I would have sent them from Rome directly to Beijing and Carthage. Also the war against Rome wolud have been quicker if I had just gone for the capital instead of also taking some of their southern cities.

But it was still fun for the last few turns!

 

[Megalou]

Like Black Vegetable I couldn't resist building some early infrastructure, and actually landed on the exact same victory date, t183. Most notable in terms of infrastructure were the Great Library + National College slingshot and stables. I think I'm pretty good at waging wars, but when it comes to preparations I have a tendency to overdo it. Nevertheless, there was genuine excitement at the end, as I shall reveal later.

But going back to the beginning - forgive me for mustering just one write-up for both opening actions and the conclusion - I actually did not settle by the river but on the hill west of the sugar. This would give access to 7 pastures.

When a pantheon was available the obvious choice would have been God of the Open Sky (culture from pastures), but I wanted a flying start and picked God-King. For a record-early religion on turn 48 I picked divine inspiration (+2 faith per wonder) and was subsequently to build quite a few pagodas for happiness.

The fronts
1. Unlike most, I didn't take out Morocco or India early, but kept Morocco as a trading partner while a lone worker worked on a road that would eventually take us south a bit quicker. My conclusion is that this worked fine because India and Morocco were neither the last civs to go, nor to go earlier than 10-20 turns before the end. So the movement potential of troops that could have been sent to more distant areas was not wasted.
2. The first army that saw real action instead went first to Seoul, and then continued to Sukhotai, Rome and Carthage. The road went as far as Seoul, then I deemed more roads not worth it. After completing Liberty and a few of the honor policies, I was happy to go Commerce and Wagon trails, as the costs of both roads and a growing army spiked. The long preparations before any AI towns were actually captured also cause a little bit of production penalty because there were too few towns to support all the units.
3. Meanwhile, another army went southwest to capture Assur, Constantinople and Beijing. The road went as far as Assur.

The penultimate capital to be captured was Beijing, 4 or 5 turns before Carthage. This timing was quite reasonable, but could have been better if it hadn't been for a very special circumstance, the exciting part mentioned above! For as the northern army turned south from Rome toward Carthage, I naturally wanted it to graze *Mount Kilimanjaro* for the movement boost. But when about two thirds had passed it, Roman borders closed the passage, creating the choke-point seen here:

I could neither negotiate open borders with Rome, because they resented us, nor declare war on them again. So when I saw that Dido had knights and several pikemen, I started to wonder if the campaign would succeed at all! I bribed them with several luxuries to go to war with China, but apparently they wouldn't send many troops there.

When the final showdown drew near, I was happy to be able to protect my 1 final trebuchet and my 1 final knight, while my 1 final pathfinder would have to serve as cannon fodder. (In some sense this seems unforgivable vis-a-vis the spirit of the Shoshone.) If Carthage had had greater survival instinct, they could have focused on taking the trebuchet out through city bombardment, but they didn't. So with a hustle from the trebuchet and the remaining crossbowmen, victory could be reached, but not without the stupidity of the AI, including a knight that decided to take a bath. Apart from losing control of their underwear and armour (which I presume they have to take off before plunging into the water), such whimsical knights also lose their zone of control. If this had not been the case, my knight would not have reached Carthage this turn:

 

[zxcvbob]

I took a pitiful 348 turns I went Tradition, Honor, Commerce, and Freedom (for Foriegn Legions). I took out Morocco first and then India; that was probably my biggest mistake because while I was fighting them I could have been exploring. I could kill Morocco and India much later at my leisure with pikes, muskets, and crossbows or cannons, meanwhile they could be helping me deal with "Barbarians Gone Wild". Mostly I built pathfinders and upgraded about 5 of them to composite bows. The game took so long because Rome had about 50 cities and I had to raze most of them to get to the city Rome. It got kind of tedious and I almost didn't finish it. Caesar had eliminated Siam already and had captured Beijing; he was the only really strong civ I faced. I liberated one of Siam's smaller cities, then was able to gift burning cities to him to kick the Romans out of the territory while my units healed for a turn or two. Things got interesting when he researched Flight and had GW bombers. I took a different research path so it took me a few turns to get to Flight, annex a crappy Roman city in a good location, and buy a couple of triplanes, meanwhile I lost a few artillery and Comanche riders but none of my extremely promoted crossbows.



I played it again to see if Liberty+Honor might be better, and I think it was. I prioritized the Pyramids, and that mainly helped with building roads. The game seemed to go a lot faster, but when my army got to the other side of the map (my scouts had explored it already this time) all the civs west of Siam were still strong and pretty evenly matched, and both China and Rome had dozens and dozens of cities. I beelined Ballistics this time (used Oxford to get it) to prevent a repeat of last time by building AA guns to use as infantry, but nobody had Flight this time. But machineguns with range, march, and logistics take down cities just as fast as artillery (I was surprised by that.) Even though it was a much faster paced (and more fun) game, it still took 344 turns.

In both playthroughs, Wagon Trains was very important to keep road costs affordable.

 

[sebtanic]

In hindsight, I think this is a map where it would have been worth taking the honor opener earlier than I did (I completed tradition first). Lots of culture to be gained from killing barbs.

 

[Bemep42]

Domination victory turn 136.

A quick relaxing game without planning after the hard "calculated" science on the deity. The game is one city, At first I built / bought 8 UU, of which only 1 remained until the 50th turn - the rest became bows. Then granary, monument, Great Library, chariots and horsemens to capture cities. I was planning National College after horse units, but after capture of Rabat, the NC for some reason stopped being available, lol. In addition, I discovered India late and moved the army west after Marrakech, but then I discovered India and I turned it back when I was halfway to Ashur. If I had just made the 3rd army for India later, I would have saved 10 turns...

open Liberty - free worker - full Honor - full Liberty (the last was free settler). Use GS from Oracle, I accelerated machinery about 125 turn, and GE from liberty, I built Sofia. I also built TA, Zeus, Parthenon, Chichen Itza in the capital and Petra in Marrakech. At the same time, I lost MoM and Great Wall in 1 turn.

God is the King, initiation ceremonies, religious community, divine inspiration, holy order. In the end, the missionaries were great at helping to fight the strike.

 

[jrwh]

Finished on 123. As mentioned in my opening actions comment, I made ten pathfinders in a row first, did a two turn monument to speed up the faster xp policy, then five more pathfinders, then did some buildings for awhile since I felt like that was enough pathfinders. Eventually built four chariots too, didn't get the wheel all that early though. Towards the end, when I had more horses, I had one army going for China and the other for Carthage, so I annexed Sukhotai and spent all my gold buying another six or seven chariots there to speed up Rome.

It's surprising how annoying this game can still be on lower difficulty, and when you're having a "good game." I was getting all my conquered luxes pillaged nonstop by horsemen near the end, and Rome beat me to SoZ and GW by one turn each. I did manage Pyramids before attempting those two, deleted the workers too, just wanted the one turn repairs. Don't think it slowed me down all that much anyway missing the other wonders, but it was still irritating.

Spoiler :

 

[vadalaz]

Results for GOTM #258
Shoshone / Domination / Prince / Highlands / Large

...Player.....................Turn
1. Bemep42.....................136
2. fiddlesticks................147
3. The_Black_Vegetable.........183
4. Megalou.....................184


More details can be found here. Please note: This list is generated automatically and only shows games that have been uploaded to the GOTM website.

Congratulations to the trophy winners and to all who played the game. Thank you for sharing your game and participating in the discussions!

 

[Megalou]

Results for GOTM #258
Shoshone / Domination / Prince / Highlands / Large

...Player.....................Turn
1. Bemep42.....................136
2. fiddlesticks................147
3. The_Black_Vegetable.........183
4. Megalou.....................184


More details can be found here. Please note: This list is generated automatically and only shows games that have been uploaded to the GOTM website.

Congratulations to the trophy winners and to all who played the game. Thank you for sharing your game and participating in the discussions!

Well, the turn ”after” my victory or defeat was 184, so if I gave the wrong information in the spoiler, it was certainly not on purpose but due to some kind of vagueness about the turn shifts.

 

[lerrocco]

Dom victory T140. I would have made the leader board! To be fair, it was only after knowing a quick victory was possible that I attempted it. Back to my civ 4 days of building 1 city and going to war.

The barbs were too strong for the AI. I never saw a Byzantium unit! The barbs had made a real mess before I walked in.

China was easy...

Rome was impossible with a few comb bows. so I waited 7 turns for the xbow upgrade. Rome marched its big army past me as I went to its capital and took it easily with the xbows.

Carthage was last, brief resistance, but ultimately futile..

That was an easy game. no great strategy on my part. I thought I would be happiness limited, but ended up being gold limited. The religion was a waste of time. Barbs were the biggest threat in this game, not the other civs.

I think thats my first large map in Civ 5, certainly my first Shoshone game. The Shoshone with plentiful ruins is a powerful combination, I enjoyed it! The map was a bit large though, took 3 long sessions to finish the game, just for all the mouse clicks.