TSG 270 After Actions

[vadalaz]

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please attach your final savefile, 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: Announcement thread | Opening actions

- Did you play peacefully or warlike?
- Were the Incan 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?
- Which AI generated the most culture?

 

[qontroL]

I got my Culture win at T310 (yikes xd), I neglected Science completely thinkin I could win pretty quickly and I ended up getting really punished by a run-away Portugal who declared a surprise war on me and killed 2 of my Great Musicians who were on the way over for the Victory. A bit rough, Ill post screenshots later when I figure out where to find them.

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I ended up playing a peaceful game. Although it was extremely goofy. America kept declaring surprise wars on me but then getting completely wrecked immediately, the 2nd time he declared war on me he literally got ripped apart by my allied City-States. I was also surprise warred by both Portugal and France a few times, but they also just straight up lost to my City-State allies along the way towards me and then gave me Boston for free to end the war. I could've finished this game eons sooner I think, I got very greedy and rushed Autocracy and wanted to use the +250 spikes to win the game, but I was a bit short and then I ran into some trouble with Portugal having a giga empire and France conquering both Brazil and America(eventually). Just as I was about to win the Mayans suddenly gained a massive boost of Culture out of nowhere even though I was already over 100% vs them, which I guess must've been a Great Writer or something. Earlier I got completely ruined as I was sending 2 Great Musicians over to a Portuguese island near my land and they both got wrecked by a surprised war declaration. I always want to not sim-city focus too much on Science and find other ways to win the game, but usually they end up backfiring a bit, just like it did this game.

I definitely settled way too many cities to properly getting value out of them, I think if I stuck to a smaller 4-city empire I would've probably had more luck, since I was able to grab just about every wonder in the game related to Culture. This should've been a faster game.

Here's some screenshots, my T100, some goofy America stuff and then the final empire screenshot.

 

[Megalou]

Rather poor game from me too, ending with a victory on t 305. I have good knowledge of Inca which is a favourite civ. Yet I was dumb enough to to settle the grassland near truffles & New York rather than the spectacular mountain sides by the ivory and incense.
Yet there are two things that make me appreciate the experience:
1. I enjoyed the very exciting early game stages.
2. Culture is a very interesting challenge: There are so many possibilities, but you have to pick one of them. Doing a little bit of everything doesn't get you very far. Real life can be like that too.
3. I blasted through the tech tree, making it virtually impossible for me to lose. I do feel settling Cusco on the cow, allowing for an observatory eventually, was appropriate. (Also, marble came within reach.

Like qontroL, I got in trouble with the Americans - even losing the stupidly placed city of Tiwanaku at on point:

I also had some early drama with the slinger unit. Using one to protect a settler, it withdrew to allow the settler to be captured. You can see how the settler was retrieved by the thinnest of margins below, as I had to use a red-lined scout to snatch the settler back. It then went on to found a west coast city which was decent but nothing like Cusco and Machu.

The last natural wonder took many turns to find, but as many as 6 city states wanted it found:

Victory screen in the midst of another feeble attack from America:

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Culture victory turn 208.

Culture is a very interesting challenge: There are so many possibilities, but you have to pick one of them. Doing a little bit of everything doesn't get you very far. Real life can be like that too.

Funnily enough, doing a little bit of everything is exactly how I would describe my approach to this game . (I don't actually disagree, I think often a focused approach may be best). Anyway I combined:

• War, to subdue the AI and take their wonders and works of art.
• Futurism
• Hard tourism with hotels

The war part was fun, and it netted me some nice cities with some nice wonders, but I did not capture that many works of art. As I found in a previous culture GotM, the AI is pretty good at hiding away its works of arts when you start laying siege to their cities.

I had 7 frigates and that was enough to take Washington, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. I left Tenochtitlan because Monty had zero wonders and we had a declaration of friendship. By the end of those wars, my frigates had just about reached logistics, but of course it was too late to sail back to attack Maya and Portugal. Although, I did not properly scout the top of the map to see if there was a panama canal . I did, with some difficulty, take Palenque with knights and cannons.

I went frigates first, and even though I was lucky to steal navigation (from Brazil I believe), it slowed down my futurism play quite a bit. In addition, I had already generated a couple of great people. So, if I were to try again, I might try an all-out futurism play (especially since I know now that coal was already improved in the capital), I suspect that tha is the quickest way to victory. Freedom internet will struggle to beat T208 I think, and sacred sites may not have enough early faith generation, even though there is plenty of land to settle (and I don't like sacred sites so I won't try that).

My Inca experience this game was good, although the lack of fresh water hurt my cities' growth a little. There were plenty of decent terrace farms, but not many very good ones, and without fertilizer my cities struggled to reach 20 pop.

 

[Megalou]

Culture victory turn 208.

Funnily enough, doing a little bit of everything is exactly how I would describe my approach to this game . (I don't actually disagree, I think often a focused approach may be best). Anyway I combined:

• War, to subdue the AI and take their wonders and works of art.
• Futurism
• Hard tourism with hotels

The war part was fun, and it netted me some nice cities with some nice wonders, but I did not capture that many works of art. As I found in a previous culture GotM, the AI is pretty good at hiding away its works of arts when you start laying siege to their cities.

I had 7 frigates and that was enough to take Washington, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. I left Tenochtitlan because Monty had zero wonders and we had a declaration of friendship. By the end of those wars, my frigates had just about reached logistics, but of course it was too late to sail back to attack Maya and Portugal. Although, I did not properly scout the top of the map to see if there was a panama canal . I did, with some difficulty, take Palenque with knights and cannons.

I went frigates first, and even though I was lucky to steal navigation (from Brazil I believe), it slowed down my futurism play quite a bit. In addition, I had already generated a couple of great people. So, if I were to try again, I might try an all-out futurism play (especially since I know now that coal was already improved in the capital), I suspect that tha is the quickest way to victory. Freedom internet will struggle to beat T208 I think, and sacred sites may not have enough early faith generation, even though there is plenty of land to settle (and I don't like sacred sites so I won't try that).

My Inca experience this game was good, although the lack of fresh water hurt my cities' growth a little. There were plenty of decent terrace farms, but not many very good ones, and without fertilizer my cities struggled to reach 20 pop.
View attachment 739183

Well done. I didn’t say you had to pick just one path. Just not all at the same time.

Do you think you’d want to delay the guilds for ”all-out futurism”?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Do you think you’d want to delay the guilds for ”all-out futurism”?

Yes, 100%. There are some old FilthyRobot vlogs (don't know which ones sadly) where he shows how it is done well: ideally you spawn your first great persons the turn after you pick Futurism.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Well, I was wrong. Pure Futurism was not faster after all, or at least my Futurism attempt was too slow. I had a quick replay, and with map knowledge and slightly more focused play I got to Education a few turns quicker (turn 117 maybe?), printing press turn 132, and Autocracy turn 146, after bulbing one scientist, Oxfording Industrialization, and buying three factories for which I just could scrape together enough money.

After that, I created great works, and went for hotels, but I mostly neglected my science because I thought Refrigeration would be my end tech, although perhaps I needed airports as well. I played up until 204, and perhaps with best play I could still have matched turn 208 (gifting a city to brazil to send him a trade route, and then bulb two musicians in his land), but I just wasted faith buying an artist.

The screen shot shows the problem: at turn 204, Brazil has nearly 10000 culture, whereas in my first game, none of the AI reached 6000.

Also, America attacked and pillaged all my trade routes in the end, whereas in my first game he was simply dead

 

[qontroL]

Yeah, Culture Victory definitely has the most RNG in the sense that it depends way heavier on what happens with other civs in the game. In that sense your approach of eliminating that RNG by taking capitals is probably the most consistent.

 

[sebtanic]

panama canal

If you had a settler handy, you could have made one! There is exactly one tile between Tenochtitlan and Belgrade where you can place a city. And it even has pearls

Good thinking to go Frigates and take out the AI capitals

 

[sebtanic]

I won turn 263 on my 2nd attempt. Brazil and Maya were the culture runaways. I didn't attempt to conquer them, it was a peaceful win except from a short war when America came after me. This time around they had a few trebuchets and actually got the defenses of my northern city down. If they had placed their melee units a bit more intelligently they might have taken it. As it were I was eventually able to fend them off with crossbows and pikes, proceeded to utterly demilitarize them, and eventually made peace for all their gold plus some lux.

I could have won between 3-8 turns earlier if I had built 2 cities near my lands and gifted them to Maya and Brazil, to reduce the time it took for my GMs to trek all the way to their lands. The one I sent to the Maya made it in time, but the one I sent to Brazil only arrived there the turn I won (see attachment 1).

Attachment 2 and 3 show my empire turn 263.

I built all the cultural relevant wonders starting at Renaissance. I went Archaeology right after Scientific Theory, and spammed archaeologist. A a result I had all my Art/Artifact slots maxed out at the end of the game.

Here's a log of the mid and late game:

t143 Notre Dame (I missed this by one turn on my first attempt, so I was happy it worked out this time)
t148 Macchu Pichu
t155 Pisa
t156 Sistine Chapel (GE from Pisa)
t159 Globe Theatre
t179 Porcelain Tower
t181 Uffizi
t189 won WF
t214 Louvre
t214 Eiffel Tower
t234 SoL
t240 Cristo Redentor
t248 won IG
t250 Internet
t260 Sydney (GE, wasn't relevant anymore but built it for fun)
t263 won

I got the internet 2 turns after winning international games, making for 4x on tourism. I figured this would give me some uber powerful GMs, and indeed two of them would have been enough to win me the game if I could have gotten them to the enemy faster. It occurred to me to gift some cities, but since this is my second attempt at the game so I'm not really in the competition anymore, I figured I'll just take the time and send them over land. My empire looks more beautiful as it is