TSG 271 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?
- 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
- Remember to post a copy of your game ending file

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Turn 295 domination victory. Reasonably satisfied after the game threatened to fall apart a little after encountering Japan's Great Wall, but no super quick timing either. Judging by the fact that this is the first post in this thread, it looks like other people are not having super fast games either. I can imagine a scenario where the Chu-ko-nus just keep marching, and then I suppose a sub-200 is on the cards. Didn't @vadalaz manage something like a T170 in the epic zulu game from a while back?

In any case, as excited as I was about the first 100 turns of play, I did not sustain that level of accuracy for the rest of the playthrough (I anyway find it hard to keep paying attention to the sim while warring). My social policies were all over the place. After tradition I went Patronage (which is useful for domination, although honor might stil have been better), then I wanted to open Rationalism, so I switched to acoustics. Then I switched off from acoustics because I had some turns to spare, and then I forgot to switch back, so I got another policy before renaissance, and opened commerce.

After retreating from Japan, I went to the English/Indonesian island. Indonesia had settled Medan on my landmass. I could easily capture it, and two ranged Chu-ko-nus could shoot Enland's second city from my coast, and I could capture the city with a trireme, gaining a foothold on the island (I did raze that city, and almost all cities I captured). London was wide open to my 3-range units, and even though I did spot a stray longbow, she did not have enough units to put up a decent defense. Similarly, the Indonesian cities were easy to capture.

My army then embarked back to the mainland, to return to Japan. This time, my much bigger force of Chu-ko-nus, knights, and some other random units could make good progress. After liberating M'banza and taking Kyoto I did immediately peace out, because my happiness was very low. In the meantime, Assyria had flooded the lands between Bejing and Honolulu with crappy cities, but by this time I had reached Industrialization, and my range-logistics gatling guns (finally freed from the damage penalty that Chu-ko-nus have compared to crossbows) went like a warm knife through the butter of Assyrian lands.

Only when I encountered Shaka did I start to bleed a couple of units (none of the highly upgraded ones, though). Shaka had not been doing that well, boxed into his corner while Assyria did most of the conquering of India. Still, impis are strong and he had a decent number of them. Finally, onto Siam. He had been spamming wonders in his cozy salted corner (including sameturning me on Taj for which I had faith-purchased an engineer). His elephants were still strong, and I lost another cavalry or two, but ultimately he also presented no challenge, especially since I had just managed to upgrade to machine guns before taking on his final two cities.

To conclude: an interesting game; I felt I started my game very well, and then I lost the plot a little bit (in the mid-game I felt I was just randomly building infrastructure rather than trying to bring forward my win condition), but I was also lucky that no of the AI were doing very well. If Shaka had snowballed and built all the defensive wonders, it might have gone a lot harder (in the end, Japan built Great Wall, in an expand so I did not get it, and Himeji also in an expand after I had already captured his capital). Siam did get Red Fort, but that alone was not enough to mount a defense - my artillery and machine still shot down his cities in two turns.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Domination victory turn 241

I settled 3 cities and went for a full Honour route. Tech path was to NC, then to Machinery, then education and military techs.

Polynesia and Mongolia were target practice with archers then comp-bows. Kyoto was comp-bows too, then they upgraded to chu-ko-nus for the trip south.

Army 2 was a mix of CS units and chu-ko-nus and cannons. I settled an 'I'm going to attack your capital city' right by London, used an extra general and got several cannon shots off after the DoW to take it easily. The travel to Sukhothai and the clean up of blocking units added 9-10 turns after London fell.

Thanks for bringing back GoTM!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Nice one, @fiddlesticks ! Interesting placement of Guangzhou. I automatically settled on the river, but that city had no production for me.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Thanks @The_Black_Vegetable ! I settled Guangzhou to get the ivory, gold and crabs in the same city, before revealing that Shanghai had an ivory in range. It ended up being a good spot, but I did run caravans to it for most of the early game.

I wonder if anyone else built Petra in Shanghai? I didn't see any desert tiles unless Uluru is counted as one. I thought that was neat. It does kind of highlight what you mentioned about building unnecessary infrastructure. If I'd just pumped out units I bet I could've sent a 3rd army to Siam and sped up the 2nd army campaign. As it was I built markets, workshops, universities, a few wonders (Oracle, Petra, Himeji, LToP). None of these were necessary. For me the slog of marching the units to their location is a disincentive to building more, even when I 'should' for optimal times.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

For me the slog of marching the units to their location is a disincentive to building more, even when I 'should' for optimal times.

Exactly. Petra went late-ish in my game (Siam built it), but I did not consider building it in Shanghai.

 

[sebtanic]

Won turn 299.

Policies: Full tradtition, 4 in Commerce, Rationalism opener, Patronage opener
Religion: Tithe, extra Production. I never spread it, and eventually another religion took over all my cities including the holy city. But my religion did make me some extra gold and hammers for a while.

Path to conquest:
t144 Karakorum
t167 Honolulu (GLH, Petra, Pyramids)
t193 Kyoto (Zeus, Notre Dame) (...btw nice wonders, guys. Thanks!)

Shaka had taken over and eliminated both India and Assyria. There were Impis everywhere, hard work for my Chokos.

I planted a few citadels since I had more GG than I knew what to do with. That helped a little, but at some point Shaka upgraded his Impis to Rifles. My Chokos were slowed down, but kept advancing.

t219 Assur
t234 Delhi

I liberated expos of both Assyria and India, who came to be good friends and trading partners for the rest of the game. I also gifted them some cities I didn't need / took too long to raze.

t252 took a peace deal from Shaka because he offered me 5 cities. I think it said the deal was for 10 turns, but it was actually 15. I was unable to DOW him again until t267. I used that time to heal my units and start building a road from India to the western border of Siam.
Anyway, I couldn't have taken those 5 cities from Shaka in 10 turns. Probably not in 15 either.

t271 Ulundi (Red Fort, + a lot of other largely irrelevant wonders)
3 capitals to go.
I have a road going all the way to Siam, and another one west from my capital to the English cities on our continent. A fleet of frigates is ready to take over London and Jakarta, and I am building a secondary army of mainly Cho-Ko-Nus (and a few cannons) to assist.

t290 London (Great Wall)
t295 Sukothai (Himeji)
t299 Jakarta

Not 100% sure, but this may have been my first deity domination win ever. I was close to giving up at one point when I realized I wouldn't be able to completely eliminate Shaka. He had one last city left, north of Ulundi, which was very hard to take due to terrain. Plus he had a citadel there.

I could have taken it from the sea, but my fleet was far away and also I needed it to take out England which had Great Wall. Shaka was tech leader, and at least 5 techs ahead of me. He had Riflemen, Xbows and Cannons, while I was still at Muskets.

Then I decided to just leave him alive, but stay at war. I built a citadel between Ulundi and his last city, and park 3 range promoted Chokonus in the hills to annihilate anything he might throw at me. The rest of my main army marched north to Siam.

Terrain up there was much more favorable. There were hills everywhere, so I could take out enemy units easily with my range promoted Chokos. Then I sent in my Cannons and melee units to take the cities.

My army of workers built roads relatively quickly to wherever my troops went (even though it still was a bit of a slog on epic). In the screenshot there is one road tile missing to connect Sukothai to my road network.

Once Sukothai was mine I just parked my units there. It would have taken 15 turns to march them all the way back west, even with roads. The western army and navy won me the game on their own just fine.

 

[Notacop]

Turn 230 Domination victory. Picking up from the opening actions thread: My army of ckns just took the Polynesian capitol. I split them up to go east for Assyria, India, Shaka, then Siam. And west for England and Indonesia. East army easily chewed through Assyria who had India's capitol as well. Took both of those easily. Assyria also took Tokyo on the coast from Japan. I ended up taking that city as well, eliminating Assyria. Then the eastern army moved on Shaka, who was a pain. He still had a bunch of impis and intermediate cities, and bought more impis every turn. My ckns had range and march by now so I went slowly, careful not to lose any. After mowing down a dozen impis, I eventually reached his cap and it fell quickly. Then the eastern army started marching north through the mountain pass to Siam. Meanwhile I started sailing a third army across the water from Tokyo to Siam (this is why I took Tokyo). The third army made it to the shore, starting the trek to Sukhothai. The eastern army was close behind, needing to deal with a Siam city in the middle of the mountain pass.

While this was going on, my western army was dealing with Gajah. Gajah had taken London and a coastal York from England, so I could stay friends with Liz which came in handy. Gajah was kind enough to settle a city on my continent, so I took it netting 2 unique luxes, one being nutmeg, his UA haha. My plan was to take York and use it as a staging area for London and Jakarta. I had reached compass and was building Galleasses, but they would take a while to get over to the front. There was a single tile on my continent where I could hit York with a ckn. After a few volleys, I captured York with a Trireme, getting my foothold. Unfortunately, Gajah had built up a ton of units, and with no else to conquer on his lands, he had his whole army sitting there ready to take back York. I was able to retreat my units before he retook it. I hit York again with the single ckn and took the city a few turns later. Instead of puppeting the city, this time I liberated it, giving it back to England. Since I was friends with England and had open borders with them and Gajah didn't, I could land my troops in York's borders without Gajah counterattacking! Thanks Lizzie. This whole sequence made me laugh (at least until I had to take Jakarta). With my army now on the other continent, I easily took London in a few turns, now gearing up to attack Jakarta. It was extremely painful and the longest siege in the game for me. Jakarta was positioned such that I had to be within the first ring to hit it with ckns, or in the second ring of 2 cities. He also had muskets and xbows by now, leaving me with very few safe places for my ckns. My galleasses finally made it over, but the city was very strong at 45 or so strength. It took multiple turns to get my army in position to attack the city, meanwhile his city was hitting me for 70+ damage each turn. Each attack only did 7-9 damage, and I was bleeding units. I lost a bunch of ckns and all of my melee units, I guess it was Gajah's turn to laugh at me now. Luckily I had reinforcements landing on the shore of York, just in time. After many, many turns and only 3 archers and 1 melee unit left, I finally took Jakarta. Now I could focus on Siam.

Siam had the great wall and was surrounded by hills, I was nervous about this one. My third army was on the doorsteps of Muang Saluang. With them was a settler. I planted the city next to their borders, popped a gg for a citadel, and opened a path to attack Muang Saluang. The city fell easily. My eastern army was coming up from the south at the same time and took another Siamese city. These 3 new cities actually plunged me into unhappiness. I went as low as -12 and spawned rebels in my cities, but more importantly I now had an unhappiness attack penalty. My treaty with Shaka was also ending in a few turns, and he was nice enough to surround Ulundi with impis. Needing to go quickly, I forged ahead, sending all my units to surround Sukhothai. Even with the unhappiness penalty, the city fell quickly in a few turns, and victory was achieved. Even with all the rough terrain I still had a blast. The western front in particular was very challenging but so satisfying. Thanks for the fun game!

Spoiler :

 

[sebtanic]

Turn 230 Domination victory.

Wow, impressive win time!

I'm curious what infrastructure did everyone build, and did you go for National College before Machinery?

Myself, I went NC first, then Optics to get a lighthouse in my coastal city (this probably could have waited until later), then Machinery for Chokonus.

I'm proud of my first deity domination win, but seeing that you guys managed to do it even faster, I'm wondering how I can further improve my strategy.

One reason I was relatively slow was probably that the Zulu were so strong in my game. They had eliminated both Assyria and India, had tons of Impis and had lots of cities to build new ones, and by the time I reached their capital it was 81 strength and they had riflemen.

Another reason might be that I took Tradition, since I thought we need a good science base. Maybe going Liberty or Honor would have sped things up.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Optics to get a lighthouse

I did delay optics, though I needed it more to scout England and Indonesia than to build a lighthouse.