TSG 263 After Actions

[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?
- Final remarks?

 

[qontroL]

I will open this by saying this one technically doesn't count. This was my first time playing as Zulu and I wanted to limit-test my Impi so I rushed London which 1shot all of them, and I went back to my T100 Save and played the game out more sensibly with a comp more suited to compliment the Impi. I've only ever played against Shaka Deity AI and it seemed like the Impi are a city-taking powerhouse, dealing crazy damage to cities, after learning the strength of the Impi I decided to adjust my strategy. Rather than using Impi+Bowmen I decided to run Impi+Siege because the Impi specialize in killing units which means they are my ''bowmen'' and I can therefore support them with Siege. My focus was to get +1 range on my Siege ASAP to safely shoot cities, because I didn't want to wait for Arti. (I did later get Arti and had 4 pretty insane Artillery units, they were basically my lifeline and my tool to win the game)

With the disclaimer out of the way, it's a T312 Domination Victory for me, not super fast, but I actually expected Epic Speed to be a lot slower, so I was pleasantly surprised.
I wanted to use the Impi, no matter what, so I did, they were very useful all the way up until only Morocco and Carthage were left, where I replaced them with Cavalry. Their main job was guarding my Trebuchets/Cannons from any units, and I mostly used them as fodder because they would always trade very favorably.

I farmed XP on Egypt all the way up till I had +1 Range on my Catapults after which I wiped them out and moved to Byblos (ally of Egypt) who I used to finish up the farming of XP to get Logistics. At this point England declared war on me and I used the terrain around Byblos to basically destroy them, it's terrible terrain for the English Longbowmen to fight in so it was an easy victory. The Netherlands later piled on and also declare a surprised war on me, running into the exact same terrain as England did, and losing their army the exact same way. While fending off the Dutch army I conquered London and York. The main reason I captured York was to keep a path open towards Amsterdam.

I rolled straight onto Amsterdam, because I had mostly already eliminated the Dutch army near Nottingham, my Citadels did a ton of work to fend off both the Netherlands and England. The Netherlands was a total pushover, they didn't put up any resistance at all anymore. While I pushing into the Netherlands I got a request from Ethiopia to join him in a war against Askia, which I gladly accepted, without actually actively participating. Some 10 turns later Askia came to me with a peace offering, offering up the city of Jenne to me. Strangely, I feel like this completely random event changed the direction of the game completely for me as I was suddenly offered a clear path towards Gao, which would eventually get conquered by Ethiopia.

I marched on to the west, figuring I would just going to march into Moroccan land, but then my spy discovered that England was building the Forbidden Palace in Hastings, so I turned my army around to take the 2 remaining English cities, I figured Forbidden Palace was pretty essential for this game.

At this point I kinda realized I might run into some relationship problems with my ally, Ethiopia because he had taken Gao and I've taken 3 Civs out of the game, betraying England. So instead of marching my army back west towards Morocco I sailed them north towards Jenne. In hindsight (I didnt know this at the time) it probably completely saved my game, because towards the west there's nothing but walls, and sailing across to Morocco would've probably cost me some of my essential Cannons. I paid Ethiopia to declare war on Morocco, and I paid Carthage to declare war on Ethiopia, to buy me some time to reach Jenne without him attacking me before I was ready. Once I landed in Jenne I declared war and started attacking Gao. This is probably the only war where I got real resistance, Ethiopia was the Civ with the most territory, destroying Songhai and half of Morocco, and he had TGW. I took Gao and liberated Askia, so I could place my Cannons in his land and attack Ethiopia from safety.

I used my great generals to remove the land towards the Ethiopian capital to be able to get the city without being stalled out by The Great Wall. His army was pretty much wiped out at this point because I was starting to get Cavalry to completely run over his army.

This is where I had another stroke of luck, after capturing Addis Ababa I got worried because the southern borders were still Ethiopian, and upon scouting my Cavalry found the city of Lalibela on 1HP from Carthage's war efforts. Had they succeeded it wouldve been really difficult for me to reach Morocco, but fortunately the path was clear and I was able to completely roll Morocco. At this point my Arti came in with full upgrades. The Moroccan army was also essentially wiped out by Carthage.

I traded everything I had to beg Carthage for Open Borders, her capital was waaaays away and meanwhile I was researching Astronomy to send some Cavalry from my starter area over the ocean for a pincer attack. Carthage foolishly open her borders (I did pay a pretty hefty prize) and I scouted her land with my Cavalry to plan my final approach.

After moving my incredibly slow Artillery through her land, it was time to declare war, it took me 2 turns to take her capital and finish the game.

T312 Domination Victory. My first win as Zulu! I got 2 achievements out of this game, the other one being something to do with upgrading Impi.

For Policies I went Libery -> Collective Rule -> Honor for bonus XP -> Liberty Finisher (GS) -> Exploration -> Maritime Infrastructure -> Rationlism Opener -> Naval Tradition. Later I got another throwaway policy in Honor (melee combat bonus) because the game was over anyway. No Ideology, no player reached the Modern Era.

My tech priority, in very rough lines was: Philosophy -> Civil Services -> Metal Casting -> Physics -> Education -> Chemistry -> Military Science -> Dynamite

I settled 3 cities (as visible in the Opening Actions thread), took Byblos, took 2 Egyptian cities, 4 English cities, 2 Dutch cities, 2 Songhai cities, 3 Ethiopian cities, 1 Moroccan city, 1 Carthagian city.

Another note is that Hanoi, Florence, Prague and Ormus were my ally for basically the entire game, which was a great baseline for growth and unlocking policies.

I never quite know when to stop prioritizing Science in these games. It's really hard to find a balance between when to build up your Science and when to move to try and win the game. I've never played Epic Speed, so I'm curious what units I could've had available by turn 312 if I had just prioritized Science the entire game. Seeing the previous months I wouldn't be surprised if someone beats the game in 250 turns with Bombers and Paratroopers.

This was my first time playing as Zulu, I hated it at first, but once I made the adjustment in strategy I feel like Impi really exist to make Siege shine, which I really love, I'm a huge fan of Persia for example. Because of this I will probably play more Zulu games. Pretty fun Civ to play. The Epic Speed was also very enjoyable, it's my first time playing on this speed. I feel like the AI is definitely worse, making the game quite a bit easier, but it was still very enjoyable.

 

[Nizef]

Really nice write up and good to see that you enjoyed Zulu&Epic. I also noted that you made good use of the CS nearby the starting location. That was actually my reasoning as well. I feel it was a good combo of CS to help you go for other policy options than the standard tradition/liberty.

 

[lymond]

T331 Domination

Spoiler Core Cities :

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
Peace? What is this odd-sounding word? Yes, lots of Impis
- What technologies did you prioritize?
After Education and Unis, I went down the path to Dynamite for Artillery
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Finished Tradition>Opened Commerce>Finished Rationalism>Opened Patronage> Order (several mainly happiness policies)
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
I settled 3 cities early, but settled one city (Bulawayo at the bottom ^^^) so I could citadel my way to London (LIz had TGW)
- Final remarks?

1) Order of defeated civs: Egypt, Ethopia, Dutch (via Lizzy), Morocco, England, Songhai
2) Early on Egypt was probably the toughest to go down for various reasons. For one, even with two cities, he was able to buy more units every turn. Rest of the AIs just gave up after a point, but not Rammbo
3) Carthage was massive and far away which was a major detour
4) I had DOF with Songhai and England for much of the game. Backstabbed Lizzy.
5) I did adopt Order and took several policies, but then my finish is likely much later than most
6) It was satisfying to lead in tech not too long after Edu. I stole like 3 techs, but then stealing became obsolete.
7) Liz was very annoying with the amount of CS she had, but otherwise the artillery made short work of England.
8) It's been a loooong time since I completed a game on Deity, and this is my first Deity Domination win. I don't recall even trying Dom on this level.
9) Focus was just wining the game, not speed. However, in hindsight, I should have killed Songhai first and then sailed everyone over to Carthage.
10) Resuscitated Willie on the way to Amsterdam. Liz had steam-rolled him earlier on (thanks to me ...I almost took Amsterdam early)

Lastly, no clue how this translates to standard speed. It seemed very slow, but just glad I won early enough that I did not need Xcoms or something.

 

[vadalaz]

T175 domination victory

Couldn't resist Shaka/Deity/Epic. Fun game with really strong starting terrain and an interesting map layout.

Policies: Tradition opener - full Honor (left side first) - Oligarchy
Tech: Pottery - Wheel - Lux techs - Philosophy - Optics - Civil Service - Physics (didn't matter)

Went for a 2-city Chariot Archer rush, but played it safe and built National College in case there would be a tough foe. Egypt and England were dead by turn 100. Logistics Chariots are a cheat code basically.

Spoiler T100 screens :

Egypt built Stonehenge early and managed to found a religion with Pagodas. I took Holy Warriors instead and bought a bunch of units with it over the course of the game. Didn't bother spreading Egyptian religion and only had one Pagoda in Thebes, because happiness was quite easy to manage with all the luxuries and CSs nearby. Honor generals allowed me to citadel out to Truffles and Whales pretty quickly.

After killing Netherlands I had to wait a little bit for Optics. Morocco was very easy, but then I started making mistakes. Lost a veteran Impi in Ethiopia because of greed - I should've just citadelled into Addis Ababa (Great Wall) instead of saving the GGs.

For Gao my plan was to take it with Impis and Catapults that I'd spawn in my core cities, but that didn't work due to Askia having Oligarchy and one-shotting Catapults, so I had to move some of the Chariots there to help. The catapult plan would have worked fine if I was more careful (either worker-baited his garrissons out or moved all my Catapults in at once, so that only 1-2 would die while all others would actually get to shoot the city).

Carthage had a lot of units but Impis destroy everything at that stage of the game, so it didn't really matter. Ended up taking Dido's capital with CAs and Impis only, my siege units were too slow to get there.

Spoiler T175 screen :

I reckon it's possible to win in 150 turns here. For me NC was unnecessary so I could've just built more units instead, I lost some time in Ethiopia and Songhai, and I could've exploited the AIs more with bribes and peace deal gold/cities etc.

 

[Bol]

T323 Domination Victory.

I took Thebes with Impis and Compos, York with Impis and Xbows but I lost most Impis and I couldn't continue the invasion.
I wanted to try Zulu Bombers, so I played peacefully till Flight and started warring again T284.
I took London and liberated Utrecht (resurrecting Dutch) with GWB, and I upgraded to Bombers (Rationalism finisher + Oxford) before taking Rotterdam.
At this point I finally had Paratroopers ready to go as well: I took Amsterdam, Breda, Adwa, Gao, Addis Abeba, Lalibela, Fes, Marracech, Hippo Regius and finally Cartaghe.
It lost some turns due Paratrooper misplacing and to not having spies preemptively ready to give city visibility;
taking Fes instead of Carthago Nova also cost me at least 3 turns, as I couldn't parachute around Hippo Regius and had to walk my Paratroopers into Great Wall territory.
I learnt the hard way that Bombers + Paratroopers are waaaay more limited than Stealth + Xcom, you have to take so many cities along the way.

Morale of the story: Bombers that start with Air Repair and quickly get Logistics are fun, but a tad broken.

I also really disliked Epic speed: too slow for my taste, the midgame up to getting GWB ready was very boring.

T

 

[lerrocco]

Retired, T190.

Incredible game from @vadalaz .. that was my intention, 2 city domination sweep. I have never considered chariot archers in civ 5, as the upgrade path is not great for city capture. But their speed works well with Impi, and chariot archers with logistics are quite the unit, while they are still relevant.

But I really messed up. I thought I could keep Egypt sweet, and take them after England and the Dutch, but Egypt offered protection to all city states and my popularity sank like a brick when I took Florence. It was also partly greed on my part, I knew they would be easy to take and thought I could let them build a stack of useful wonders for me.

I wasted more effort than I could afford taking Florence, only to gift it away for the happiness recovery. England was fairly straightforward before they had longbows, but once I captured London Egypt attcked me and when I sent my troops back north to defend, the Dutch attacked London.

My troops got back to defend against Egypt, but werent needed for defence as the impi were too big a barrier. I did need my bows to attack though, my comp bows took his first city easily, but even with range and logistic my bows were doing 2 hp per shot against the capital, and I had to wait several turns before I could upgrade to xbows. Then the city fell in 2 turns, I had 5 xbows with range and logistics.

My Impis smashed the Dutch army and he gave me a lot of gold in settlement. I use the battle calculator to gauge the hits, I often want to wound a unit rather than kill it, especially if my unit ends up on a hex that is not favourable. That's much harder to control with the Impi. They were doing 50+ damage to mounted units per turn.

But then Liz attacked with 5 longbows and some other troops. There is no way she can take London, but my army now has to come back south to Amsterdam, then finish Liz, then onto the rest of the island.

Its too much.

I can not march my army south, back north and back south again and hope for a quick victory, especially after so many turns to take Florence.

My army is impressive, no doubt at all I could take the Dutch and then finish Liz, But then the xbows are most likely outdated.

T190 now, another 20-30 turns to take the Dutch, another 10 or more for Liz, and then march east. Im not going to do it. On normal speed, for a quick domination, the game has to be won (or be in a winning position) by T150. On Epic that would be T225. I am outside of that. I would be happy for a T225 victory, which puts @vadalaz 's time in even greater context.

I realize I could now build up for a later war, but I am not going to. I might try this game again with a better strategy. Egypt then the Dutch / England then onwards is better than CS, England, Egypt, Dutch, england (again).

I learned much from this game. The Impis are impressive units. I now have a much better idea about CS alliances etc, and how the popularity rating works. I don't care for all the silly negative diplomatic bonus during domination. But those are the rules, I have to live with them.

Nice map, good challenge. I hope to come back to this one day and achieve the quick domination.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Domination victory turn 197

110 London (army 1), 126 Thebes (army 2), 135 Amsterdam (army 1), 156 Gao (army 2), 167 Marrakech (army 1), 196 Carthage (army 1), 197 Addis Ababa (army 2 + extra units bought in Lalibela and citadels)

Army 1: 4-5 Impis, 2 range/logistics archers, 2 range logistics chariot archers

Army 2: 4-5 Impis, 3 catapults (1 range/logistics at the end as a trebuchet did the hard work on Addis Ababa), 2-3 archers

Opened Tradition, Honour (all), then 2 in Patronage.

I had an early ruin pop Bronze Working which was very helpful, and I built SoZ as a result.

I DoW'd Egypt right off the bat, but then made peace and even were friends for awhile, using a trade route to gain some science. England I also DoW'd early, but stayed at war longer, farming XP for Army 1. Army 2 farmed XP against Ethiopia, and it took a while to get those crucial promotions to really take down the city. Addis had the GW too, adding to the challenge there. Carthage had really low city defense scores and was an easy campaign, despite the distance from Marrakech and the limited units I brought there.

You'll notice not a lot of units in this screenshot. I lost 4-5 units in the last 3-4 turns knowing the game was drawing to a close.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

T294 domination victory, but I'm not really pleased with the game. I might do a longer write-up later if I have time, though basically what happened what that I tried to juggle sim city and war, and ended up not being particularly good at either. Typically on Deity you do need some science for domination games, but in this case, with good land, zulu, and epic speed, an all-out war approach as demonstrated by @fiddlesticks and @vadalaz was certainly possible, so I feel I missed out on the real Zulu experience here. I might have another go, and try a more direct, honor-based approach.

One thing that slowed my game down even more was that the first attack that I attempted, against England, failed. I only had a couple of impis and composite bowmen, but she had very little army so I thought I would have a go. However, tradition cities plus Goddess of Protection is no joke, so she one-shot all my comp bows, and the impis were not faring much better. I did not suffer huge losses, as I bailed out pretty quickly (and turn ~140 I spotted the first longbow), but I did miss an opportunity to get rid of England early.

 

[qontroL]

One thing that slowed my game down even more was that the first attack that I attempted, against England, failed. I only had a couple of impis and composite bowmen, but she had very little army so I thought I would have a go. However, tradition cities plus Goddess of Protection is no joke, so she one-shot all my comp bows, and the impis were not faring much better

Haha, the same thing happened to me, but I got completely ruined because right as I started sieging London she allied Florence who for some reason had an absolutely massive army (I still dont quite understand why some City-States build immense armies while others dont), rather than pulling out I decided to basically rush London and end the war that way, which... let's just say I may have lost my capital to Florence Which is crazy when you look at how far away Florence is from my capital, they were on a mission.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

A small addition to my earlier short report. After being beaten back by England, I moved my armies towards Egypt. However, I wanted to wait until our declaration of friendship had expired. When that timer hit -1, I remembered there was some kind of bug for the longer paces, but I decided I would wait a few turns more, and keep selling him stuff for gold (he had about 65 gpt). When the counter hit -20 and we were still friends, I could wait no longer and declared war anyway. So I basically only started warring proper by the time @vadalaz and @fiddlesticks were done (somewhere 190s).

After that, I suffered no real upsets anymore. Egypt had very little army (and had built a couple of nice wonders such as Chichen in the meantime) and Thebes fell after a few turns of war. Then it was off to Gao, which surprisingly had been taken by Ethiopia. Haile Selaisse had built the Great Wall, but I had good access to Gao, and from there I could march and general (a little bit - I did not have anywhere near as many generals as in my next attempt, which I will describe shortly). I did keep bleeding units, though, so by the time Addis Adaba had fallen, I was down to three impis, soon to be upgraded to riflemen. That first army then went south to Morocco (fully destroyed by Carthage), so I could usefully liberate non-capital cities, and trade away and razed Cartiginian cities that were dragging down my happiness.

Finally, England fell to foreign legions and artillery. My usual play is to immediately upgrade foreign legions to full infantry, but even in the final screenshot I was not quite at plastics. Then finally on to Amsterdam. As it turned out, my first army, having embarked from Carthage, got there first.

For my second attempt, I wanted to go into honor, so I ended up copying @fiddlesticks : tradition opener, then full honor, though for my play three points into honor and then into Tradition would have been better, especially if I had gotten Oracle, though I lost that. In fact I lost most of the wonders I attempted: Statue of Zeus, Oracle, Machu Picchu (why do I need to look up the spelling every time?). Anyway, this time I went Egypt first, with spearmen and composite bowmen. Then I wanted to go Netherlands next, but on the way south my road was blocked by an English city Nottingham (which will feature again later), so I veered off towards London instead. My composite bows were already nearing logistics (by contrast, in the first game I only got my first logistics turn ~220, after taking out Addis Adaba), and London fell without drama turn ~130). Then Amsterdam, and I also conquered the English city of Nottingham that was on the inner sea, which I sold to Songhai; only for 6gpt, but I did not want to deal with the unhappiness.

From Notthingham I sailed the inner sea towards Marrakech, and then I could general into Ethiopia (Great Wall, again). The game was going well, and I am heading for a faster victory time, however, I will end the game here. The first screen shot shows my progress against Ethiopia (only Gao and Carthage to go), however the second screen shot shows me losing Amsterdam. Carthage and Songhai gad joint declared on me, which did not seem worrisome at first, until Songhai used Nottingham as a staging area to invade Amsterdam, which was basically defenseless.

That is one take-away from this epic game pace: it takes super long to get conquered cities going (and I kept Utrecht because it had Colossus, so I had to 'stop city razing'). Anyway, I am out of writing time again. A fun game, and I did get to experience the Zulu epic war mongering in the end. One question: was the map altered to require optics? I don't think I've ever seen that before.

 

[raider980]

T203 Loss to Liz by resignation. Couldn't take London. Couldn't even get close. London is in a great defensive position, especially for her 3-range Longbows.

After capturing Thebes from Egypt, I moved my army toward London. Built up even more Impi and XB but it wasn't enough. Between the jungle and marshland protecting London, my Impi were torn to shreds before getting close.

Spoiler Marsh in the perfect position to halt any Impi attempting to enter from the NW :

Spoiler Why can't my Impi attack this LB? Jungle should only take up two movement right? :

Spoiler But yet this Impi can attack this Swordsman. After all this time playing Civ 5 I still don't understand combat lol :

Spoiler Resigned T203 :

Oh, and I'm so bad at combat that when I declared war on Liz, Byblos marched right over and captured Thebes from me . Actually, it turned out not to be too bad, Thebes was causing me happiness issues and I figured I'd just take it back at the end for the win. But then England couldn't be conquered so never got the chance to see.

Spoiler Byblos Thebes :

The previous GotM with Zulu the Impi were amazing. This game they were lackluster. Guess its Deity and so I wasn't far enough along in tech to get the Impi soon enough to be awesome. Should have gone for England first I guess.

 

[vadalaz]

Why can't my Impi attack this LB? Jungle should only take up two movement right?

Flatland jungle costs 2 movement points, hill jungle costs 3

 

[raider980]

Flatland jungle costs 2 movement points, hill jungle costs 3

Ah, that makes London even more impenetrable. I guess the move is to take it by sea.

 

[sebtanic]

Wow, what an intense game. I won turn 340, taking London for the second time. First time I took it from land, before Longbows. But Lizzy captured it back. Second time, I took it mainly from the sea.

This might be the first time I win Domination on Deity. Yay!

It was also the first time that the AI managed to take back their capitals from me. Several times, actually. My early game went great, and I captured Thebes turn 102, then London turn 145. But later in the game, Thebes got taken by Byblos who was allied with someone I was fighting, and they had an enormous army. I had virtually no units defending the home land since it never happened to me that an AI whose capital I had taken re-DOWed me when my army was stronger. Another first!

I got Thebes back eventually, only to lose it (much later) again to Egypt I think. Also, the English took back London once they had longbows. They actually did a triple DOW on me together with Egypt and Ethipia. I only had one lonely Impi defending London, so I didn't stand a chance. I decided to wait till I retake it until i had Frigates. It ended up being the last capital I took.

Here's the notes I took during my game, with some annotations:

Ruins: pop, scarcher, 75g, map, 30c, 50g, camp, Calendar
BO: sc, sc, mon

t69 Pyramids
t102 took Thebes (for the 1st time)
t110 finally bought Uluru (the National Wonder near the 2nd expo -- took me forever to get enough cash because I prioritized upgrading my units, as described in the Opening Actions thread)
t118 Pantheon: Sacred Waters
t136 finished Liberty -> GS -> bulbed Civil Service for Impi
t145 took London (Colossus, GLH, Terracotta) for the 1st time
t163 Machinery for Xbows
t170 Religion: Tithe, Pagodas
t171 took Amsterdam

- lacked the money to upgrade all my CBs to XBs, so I kept fighting the Netherlands for money from pillaging and city capture. Also I needed to capture Thebes back from Byblos before making peace. I eventually did, but I didn't take note of the date.

t180 eliminated Netherlands
t201 took Marrakech (Notre Dame)
t201 got double DOWed by Songhai (lol) and Dido (gulp - she had the largest military, it was huge)
t202 peace with Morocco
t213 got triple DOWed -- England, Ethiopia, Egypt :/ I am now at war with everyone except Morocco. Egypt managed to take Thebes, but they were fairly easy to beat back. Not sure what date I re-took Thebes for the 2nd time.
t214 England takes back London
t221 Enhanced Religion: Peace Gardens, Messiah
t247 - peace w Carthage & Ethiopia
t258 took Gao
t279 took Addis Ababa (Great Wall, and many more wonders)

- what a fight! I had to use 3 Citadels from one of their expos. My XBs were fighting his unique unit, Mehal Safari or something. Basically better Riflemen.

t284 eliminated Ethiopia since they were tech leaders, and I didn't want them to get Flight or something and get back at me

Now just London and Cathage remaining... Both have huge armies. Carthage had the biggest military for most of the game. And when I had finally demilitarized them, now England was first in military.

t294 Oxford -> Dynamite
t321 3 factories -> Freedom, went for Foreign Legions (which were sent south towards London)
t333 took Carthage (SoZ)

- I was fighting Carthage with Logistics and Range promoted XBs, Artillery, and Impis promoted to Riflemen. Some of my XBs had all the promotions there are for archery units. I had to roll up Carthage from the east. I was also building Frigates non stop in my 2 coastal cities, but they had a a huge navy too which engaged my Frigates near our homeland. Once I got the advantage at sea they sailed over toward Carthage, but didn't make a lot of difference except that they helped to liberate Almaty.

- After conquering Carthage I waited until I had enough money to ally Byblos and Prague. Both were allied to England so I wanted them on my side of course. Prague had a huge navy that would help me against the English SOTLs, and Byblos also had a very large army that could have endangered Thebes again if they were against me. With the city states allied, plus 6 foreign legions, I had a distinct advantage there and the war against England was nice and quick.

t340 took London for the 2nd time and won.

The 2nd time around, I took London with Frigates. Took me a while to get most of my fleet back from Carthage though, but fortunately my CS allies Prague and the other one down south were taking care of the English navy. Once London's defenses were down, a Foreign Legion just walked in there for the win

A general note on game play: I wasn't aware how incredibly effective pillage/repair is. I now understand why the pro players love to build Pyramids when warmongering. This game was epic speed so it took 2 turns to repair tiles, but I still made tons of money just pillaging the lands around some previously razed city and then repairing it with my workers, then pillaging it again. I basically had a pillage/repair economy

It felt like an exploit, I hope it isn't banned but I've seen it mentioned a lot so I assume everyone is doing it. I've used it for healing before, but before this game I wasn't aware exactly how powerful this is to earn gold.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

It felt like an exploit, I hope it isn't banned but I've seen it mentioned a lot so I assume everyone is doing it

I believe it is indeed not allowed if you are submitting a Hall of Fame science victory game, but I've never heard it being banned from GotM games.

 

[Megalou]

I believe it is indeed not allowed if you are submitting a Hall of Fame science victory game, but I've never heard it being banned from GotM games.

If you get money from pillaging tiles that belonged to razed cities but not to anyone anymore, it feels like an bug and an exploit to me. Playability suffers when inane activities like that take on a "purpose".

BTW, victory around turn 340 for me. I seriously overestimated the AI, building too many cities and too much infrastructure. It seems like the AI just can't handle the slower pace. I built too much infrastructure and although I enjoyed the early to mid phases, the game lost some appeal when I realized I needed artillery, which was eventually brought in by Oxford.

Congratulations to the more successful players, very interesting!

 

[elotar]

This was my first Zulu game, first epic speed game, first domination deity one, and generally I'm rarely playing without mods.

So at the beginning I was a little lost, while was reading civilopedia about zulus somehow my settler managed to found a city (keyboards shortcuts still work?), decided to go with it. Took liberty, found two additional cities on the coast, two in mainland. Decided to play it safe, so went to the NC, then universities, building military units in between. Started war with Egypt from the very beginning to steal workers, finished them at turn 184 with Impis and trebushets, attacked England with this troops, took their northern expo, but totally failed against Longbowmen. Peaced out, moved to Songhai, killed them at t248. Ethiopia got a great wall and their unique units, so with range 3 Trebushets I've managed to take couple of cities, but decided again to negotiate peace. Then I got artillery after which it was generally roll over the map - t312 London, t332 removal of Holland, t345 Marokesh and then like 40 turns war with Cartage, which managed to have 20 cities and even some planes when my armies started to approach their capital.

After liberty went for Patronage, buyed nearly all sity-states on the map, then rationalism and autocrathy. Got the second biggest religion and in general was dominating in all aspects at the second part of the game. Feels much mode different, than my usual science wins, when I'm somewhere at the 5-6 place most of the time.

Obviously I've done crap load of suboptimal stuff, and if I've played it second time will try to rush England early then move one army by the south to destroy Netherlands than Marocco, second to the Egypt and Songhai, then build a fleet, so while ground troops will take Adis-Abeba fleet can take Cartage.

Got some general thoughts about civ combat. While I was marching through Cartage terrytory with range 4 double shot artillery and 3 move infantry I feel kind of invinsible - move 2 infantry just can't reach my lines before dying, and I can take cities easily from outside bombardment range. So it was just a matter of time to take 20-city empire with much bigger army, no effort or tactics needed. It reinforced my old idea (which actually appeared while I was playing open general like 15 years ago), that hexagonal game needs move 3 infantry to provide interesting war dynamics. At least AI units may deal some damage before dying, so the war will not be so one-sided. What do you think?