TSG 267 After Actions

Nizef

Emperor
GOTM Staff
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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?
- What did you think about the map type?
- Which ideology did you pick?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
- Overall remarks
 
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I overshot turn 100 considerably because the game was moving so fast, so I'm posting here instead. I just entered the industrial era.
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- What Social Policies did you choose?
- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Initial thoughts were where to settle? (coastal, fresh water, or mountain) I moved my warrior to the southeast and the lands looked good there; I decided to settle north on the gems. First thing I built was a scout, then immediately started pre-building a settler. When Pottery unlocked I switched to a shrine, then back to a settler and a granary. Since Rio did not have fresh water I wanted Hanging Gardens for a garden, but if I missed it I could put my national epic and guilds in Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo built my next settler while Rio was building Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens. I bought the last settler in Salvador. I also built the Oracle and Machu Picchu. I got beat to the Great Lighthouse. No wars so far.

Religion is faith from gems and pearls, pagodas, food from shrines and temples, and Religious Texts.

The terrain didn't really influence my early decisions much, except that there's plenty of jungle for brazilwood camps, and there's a mountain range between me and Hiawatha, which should keep him from getting frisky. My scout got killed by barbarians before I explored the northern part of the continent so I just sent a pike up there to see if there's any surprises. I really thought I would form the world congress (I had Printing Press and had my caravels had found all but one civ) but Hiawatha beat me to it.

Social Policies were Tradition, then I made sure I got into the medieval era (Theology, I think) before the next policy because I wanted Exploration for my fillers before Rationalism. Now I'm researching a couple of really cheap techs on the bottom row, then Electricity, and Oxford into Radio.

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SV on turn 314. My goal was to launch before year 1900 which I think is turn 320. I built 2 parts and bought all the rest, but I could have built 2 more while researching everything leading up to Particle Physics and Nanotech and probably taken exactly the same number turns. But I had plenty of gold so I spent it. And I faith-bought 2 great scientists plus all the ones I had stockpiled and the two from Hubble.
- Did you play peacefully or warlike?
- What did you think about the map type?
- Which ideology did you pick?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
- Overall remarks
Totally peaceful. I wasn't even sure what the map type was,😂 but it was a good map. Happiness was a little scarce but I managed to keep it just barely positive most of the game. (Notre Dame and Chichen Itza would have been nice but I missed both of those) I used about half of my great artists for golden ages. I was a little concerned that I might accidentally get a cultural victory, so I delayed building hotels and didn't build any airports or the visitor center.
Freedom! I founded 4 cities and had one flip to me from Hiawatha for 5 total.
Final remarks: It was fun. I probably should pay a little more attention to the map type. (what was this, continents or fractal?) Almost my whole army was given to my by Budapest :ar15:

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Victory, t253. The game felt like a personal improvement, since some techs were undoubtedly faster than usual, eg Electricity 4 turns. My timing at the end was also a bit better than it has been before, not wasting resources on the wrong things. I expect to be beaten by scores of turns, but if someone beats 200 turns I will fall off my chair.

GOTM267_t253final.png


Fortaleza was the problem child. I only settled it where I did in the hope of getting Petra (and an observatory thanks to The Grand Mesa), but on emperor level that was a fool's hope. Black Vegetable's attempt to get Petra on the coast near the crabs to the north made more sense, but for some reason I didn't see the crabs and was concerned about happiness at that stage. A 4th coastal city by the crabs looks like a total non-brainer in hindsight. Yet Fortaleza was better than nothing. It built 2 wonders and in the end its stats were roughly equal to Cuzco, except in size.

Speaking of which, as the minimap reveals I wiped out the Incas and kept Cuzco (Petra and Statue of Zeus). I later upgraded a few units in order to mess with the Maya too, but that was mostly for fun, and my rep was shot anyway.

Late wonders:
Medieval/renaissance: Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal, Globe (for the writer and as a Shakespeare tribute), Sistine Chapel, Leaning Tower, Porcelain Tower.
Industrial and later: Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, Hubble Telescope.

Culture: I saved my Great Writers until after World's fair. I thought their value would go up instantly when my culture was doubled, but instead it surged upward until the rise started to level out after about 8-10 turns. I didn't know about this phenomenon.
I also learned more about the "Each city you found will increase the :c5culture: culture cost of policies" rule, and here is how:

Because gold was scarce, half a dozen city states wanted it hooked up, and WLTKDs required it, I sent a settler to the gold:
GOTM267_Gold.png
One turn later I gave it to the Aztecs...
GOTM267_Gold2.png

...thinking that the cost of policies and techs would go down again. But no! Apparently it's literally the cities you "found" that counts, and not the cities you own!

Social policies: Apart from the obvious Freedom tenent Spaceship Procurements, I also aimed for Wagon Trains (cheeper roads), Mercantilism (Hello Donald) (Science from commercial bulidings) and Scholasticism (25% science from allied city states). Space Procurements came in last, which meant my timing was good.

I also opened Aesthetics at one point.

Missed late wonders: Notre Dame.

Enhanced Religion: (Pantheon was sacred path (+1 culture from jungle) founder and follower beliefs were tithe and divine inspiration (+2 faith per wonder)). Then I picked Swords into Plowshares and Holy Order.

"- What did you think about the map type?" I'd love there to be more games with unknown landmasses, but I suppose not many map types come with that. I wonder if the game can be tweaked so that the landmass type is kept secret?

To summarize, I remember the last time I played Brazil. Then my growth suffered because I placed too much trust in the jungle tiles. I think I struck a better balance this time, allowing my cities to really grow before considering working the jungle tiles. But of course founding only 3 coastal towns on the east coast was a bit of a blunder.
 
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Science victory turn 238

Thanks for a fun game @Nizef!

I moved south to the mountain for my capital, and made my 2nd city into a Petra attempt that worked out for me. It did seem to slow my population growth down, because instead of coastal trade routes, my first few were land routes to Sao Paolo.

I went Tradition into Commerce, then Rationalism, Mercantilism after the 3rd Rationalism policy and Freedom.

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.thinking that the cost of policies and techs would go down again. But no! Apparently it's literally the cities you "found" that counts, and not the cities you own!
Actually, it's determined by the highest number of cities that you have owned (please anyone correct me if I'm wrong). So, if you had acquired another city after gifting the city to Aztecs, your culture and science costs would not have gone up. I sometimes use this mechanism in domination, when you are fighting your way to an AI capital, I don't want to instantly raze a city on the way, in case I want to keep it to upgrade units or citadel into the capital.

Funnily enough, I also almost settled the gold city as well, around turn 190, because almost all my cities and some CS wanted it, but I decided to stay sensible, or relatively sensible anyway ;-)
 
T230 science victory. I can hardly believe I'm the fastest so far! After the openings thread, I actually thought your game looked a bit better, @Megalou , and I take it as a given that @fiddlesticks is faster than me, but I suppose not even he can have amazing games all of the time. What makes it even more surprising is that my game did not feel particularly great, and I messed up in the end game for at least three turns worth.

After getting universities my plan was to go workshops into navigation to do naval conquest, starting with Cusco; then I slightly changed my mind and decided I wanted to build the artist and writers guild in the capital before starting to build galleas. The naval warfare went pretty smoothly, the AI had next to no defenses on Emperor, and I also did not have to suffer enemy caravels pillaging all my trade routes (I lost only two cargo ships all game, one to Isabella and one to barbarians) all the time, which typically happens on Deity. Even so, it took a long time to get all the capitals I wanted: Cusco, Lisbon, Palenque, and finally Madrid was a lot of sailing (or maybe I should just do a better travelling salesman :)). Because of the large distances between the capital, I could not send a cargo to Madrid, which was still a little sad at the end as a result.

The middle game was to go industrialization first (since I had the Big Ben engineer ready), and on turn 172 I bulbed one scientist for Scientific Theory and bought 4 public schools (only the Big Ben discount so far). Then on the way to labs I detoured for fertilizer as well to help out the capitals I had taken over, though that felt like a mistake. On turn 200 I bulbed two scientists for labs, since I had the gold to purchase them, in my core cities at least. Given the good base I had now (and that I had already researched up to navigation and fertilizer), perfect play should have resulted in a ~T225 victory, but I needed a few turns more.

My biggest failing this game was generating too many engineers. The first one was courtesy of Temple of Artemis plus Hanging Gardens: the first engineer spawned before my first scientist (I put it to good use though, engineering Big Ben, which is difficult to hard build in time for schools). The second one was just sloppy: I was keeping an eye on the engineer points in the capital, but I had not noticed Brasilia with its windmill was also quickly generating an engineer. As a result, I was basically one scientist short in the end game, and I lost 3 to 4 turn hard teching the final tech when the scientists ran out (thanks to reliquary I could at least purchase the 2500 scientist). Also, nice caravel, Inca :cool:
Brazil_fertilizer.png

Brazil_victory.png

Lisbon_Madrid.png
Palenque.png
 
Actually, it's determined by the highest number of cities that you have owned (please anyone correct me if I'm wrong). So, if you had acquired another city after gifting the city to Aztecs, your culture and science costs would not have gone up. I sometimes use this mechanism in domination, when you are fighting your way to an AI capital, I don't want to instantly raze a city on the way, in case I want to keep it to upgrade units or citadel into the capital.

Funnily enough, I also almost settled the gold city as well, around turn 190, because almost all my cities and some CS wanted it, but I decided to stay sensible, or relatively sensible anyway ;-)
Yes, I seem to remember that the policy cost didn’t change when I later captured Palenque. Congrats on the fastest win so far - it seems like your well-planned capital conquests payed off nicely.
 
Science victory T236, which might be my fastest ever!

I had a good midgame on every front, especially culturally (as expected, between Pagodas and early Woodcamp spam): I had Secularism by T150 and Free Thought by around T175.
Science wise, I had to go Acoustics first not to delay Rationalism, and then Astronomy into Printing Press.

TSG267 T150.png


I'm not happy about my Industrial strategy: I went Schools first (built all of them), but then I wasted time on Industrialization instead of beelining Radio...with the result being ideology through Radio :( This was made worse by the fact I knew I was going Order since I didn't need the food from Freedom at all, and by the time I got to tier 2 I had 4 Factories mostly built, so I couldn't take full advantage of the production bonus.

Wonder-wise, I had an engineer sitting around which I used for Sistine, while I built Machu and lost Chichen Itza by a few turns.
I got Pisa around T160 and got a Scientist out of it.
Meanwhile I decided to take Cusco (T159), which had Petra and Chichen Itza (and the useless Terracotta): 3 Frigates and 3 turns were enough, and I stopped warring because I was not in the mood.
I had also dowed Iroquois T150 to capture 2 fully charged Prophets wondering in my territory, which I immediately planted.

My buggest mistake was completely forgetting to start the World Fair (lol): I forgot like 15 turns later, but nobody bothered building it and it was at like 10%; I completed it basically by myself T202; I supposed this costed me, since I was slow to advance ideology because of it.
I got a somewhat fast Plastics T201 and I had more than enough gold to immediately buy all 6 Labs (science went from 1070 to 1550!), and from there it was a standard and boring endgame.

TSG267 T200.png


TSG267 T200 Cusco.png


I floated Porcellain Tower for a long time waiting to complete it after one more scientist, but I lost by a couple turns (not that it mattered at all).
I engineered 5 parts: one generated (my 2nd), one from Order, 3 faith bought (no Scientist bought with faith, no need to).
My culture was pretty insane: I completed Tradition, Rationalism, 3 right into Commerce and 9 Order (+50% internal TR first, engi parts last).
This is another reason I went into Order: it has so many more good tenets compared to Freedom, specifically a 2nd good tier3 and 3 good tier2 instead of one.

TSG267 T236 Win.png

TSG267 T236 Win Cusco.png


Overall I am very happy with the result, and it was a lot of fun! (although it was a very easy one).
 
t268 SV

Spoiler :
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Enjoyed the game, but not very impressed with my victory. I settled on gems...seemed a no brainer really. Tears>Pagoda>Production>Itinerant. I felt my early game was pretty decent with a good NC timing. I too tried to settle that desert hill area for Petra but Capac built first, and so that city was probably a mistake. I probably should have settle the 5 city up north.

I took Cuzco with combos, sword and a pike. It was a little difficult getting down there and taking the city on a hill but it was a nice prize. The naval approach Veg used probably would have been easier.

Later on, I joined Monty in a war with Hiawathi. He was spamming GPs on me so that had to stop. He actually converted Rio and another city, though I bought his cathedrals before the flip back. I remained at war with Hia for the rest of the game and did take his cap, which was not a very good city.

The early neighboring civs were of not much use. Monty never would DoF me despite the shared wars. Pocatello did absolutely nothing, and they never had much gold or resources to trade.

Once again, I did not prioritize meeting the other civs after Astro, which I believe impacted my game some. I did get a DoF with Portugal, she is usually friendly. Oh, and Pacal got the faster artist/writers thing from World Congress, which did not help at all, and I could not stop it. I repealed it in the next one. He wasn't happy but still DoF me later but at thatpoint that was irrelevant.

Policy timings worked out okay, better than usual. I did not have to waste a policy before nabbing Commerce and the key buying policy. I probably should have prepared to have more gold before unis, but was at least able to to buy 2 or 3 first thing. Not having early friends did not help.

oh...Although I had a lot of city states allied later, in the early game I had trouble getting the important ones allied...just the military ones.

I was able to close out fairly fast at the end bulbing through the final 10-12 techs and buying parts, but somewhere between my early game and endgame I failed somewhere. .Oh, happiness early was at a premium. Not a lot of luxes to trade for so that was an impact. For one, it made me hold off on annexing Cuzco for a long time, which was too bad as it was a good city...so I believe it was just draggin me down a long time, culture and science wise. Also, Capac coulda played ball a bit more and built me some terrace farm before I killed him :D
 

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About the Petra discussion in the Opening spoiler, I made another attempt, trying to get Petra in a coastal town near the crabs. The result was missing it by 4 turns on turn 116. The town was only the fourth one founded, so I didn't over-exert myself or sacrifice other things. I could in fact have bee-lined harder for currency.

I'm thinking now that Petra could have been built in the location 1 NW of Sao Paolo in the picture below. But it's hard not to build ASao Paolo on the gems and Petra is not terribly important in that location.
GOTM267_retry.png
 
Turn 234 win.
The Petra city turned out with higher science than the capital in the end. It was a big investment though, it needed 3 internal trade routes the whole game.
I made a mistake that slowed down my game. I founded my last 2 cities too late. Between public schools and universities. I was swimming in happiness which was wasted. Also with more cities i think you can generate more GS.
I also prebuild porcelain tower to 1 turn, to pop it after hubble, but while building hubble pacal actually built it, so I missed 1 GS that could have shaved off a bunch of turns.

Spoiler :
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but while building hubble pacal actually built it
That was one advantage of the war-like approach: the AI was not much building much of anything anymore, in any case the Mayans were gone. Although I did not war Shoshone and Aztec, so I suppose Pocatello could have built it (Monty was not doing very well), and I confess I did not think to check either if anyone had Rationalism opened, let alone whether anyone was building the wonder.
 
It's also funny to reflect on my post in the announcement thread. I was so sure the gems tile was not coastal, eye balling it from the land graphic on the east side of the tile. Once revealed it turns out the shore line was half into the eastern hex and it was coastal after all.
 
Results for GOTM #267
Brazil / Science / Emperor / Rainforest

...Player.....................Turn
1. The_Black_Vegetable.........230 :trophy:
2. fiddlesticks................238 :trophy2nd:
3. Megalou.....................253 :trophy3rd:
4. lymond......................268


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! :goodjob:
 
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