TSG 59 After Actions Thread

[Xicivilian]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 59
Date submitted: 2013-05-15
Reference number: 28947
Your name: Xicivilian
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1894AD
Turns played: 317
Base score: 1012
Final score: 1606
Time played: 8:51:00
Submitted save: TSG59_Win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Xicivilian_C505901.Civ5Save


Not first GOTM I played, however first GOTM I finsih (win) AND submit. And as I am Dutch, it is good to win with the Dutch.

Settled on capital. Build Rotterdam to the east next to marble and mountain, Utrecht south next to river and lux and Groningen north next to ocean and gems. Fully got liberty, but I think tradition would be better. Opened three in Patronage for science from CS and afterwards went Freedom until Free Thought (and maybe one more).

Building start order was scout > shrine > monument and then mix of wonders, units and buildings. Build GL and NC, but last took me some time to get Libaries in all cities and before building NC I conquered a city of Sweden and later capital.

Tech focus mainly on science techs, but in mid-game on trebuchets and LS, to conquer cities of Etiopia. Great Wall of him slowed me down to much at the point I lost to many units and Etiopia game after me. But my conquered city of him with Gatling could manage in him not doing damage.

Religionwise I took science from trade routes, tithe, further spread of religion and happiness from shrines and temples.

UA is nice and UI especially nice as I thought these could only be build on marsh, so it was nice to discover they could be build on Flood Plains as well. Also build some Sea Beggers who tried to bombared city. Got some gold of them and Raider III promotion (receive gold equal to 100% of damage), but before musket could take city (due to GW), the ships where destroyed by crossbows.

Fun game and my first Diplo Victory and G&K Victory ever.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Congrats on the win, Xicivilian. I'm glad you enjoyed this one for being the first GotM win/submission, Diplo win, and G&K win as well as doing all of that with your native Dutch civ. That's a lot of firsts in one game!

 

[Xicivilian]

I couldn't agree with you more! Indeed a lot of firsts! Think I will try the Dido GOTM to improve my military tactics. Don't expect a win though.

 

[Monthar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 59
Date submitted: 2013-05-15
Reference number: 28952
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1888AD
Turns played: 314
Base score: 2548
Final score: 4109
Time played: 8:14:00
Submitted save: TSG59_Diplo_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C505901.Civ5Save

I made it with 13 hours to spare. I was slow getting there and didn't use any RA's, but look at that 4109 score.

 

[Muaziz]

cap bo was something like scout-scout-shrine-(buy settler)-granary-(buy worker)-GL-NC-(buy settler)-(buy stoneworks)-HG-settler-HS-CI. skipped monument thanks to culture ruin. no pop ruin unfortunately. settled on the silver obviously.

rotterdam was founded t24 (delayed by one turn due to barb, avoidable mistake) next to the mountain on the plains hill for river access (garden, hydro). bought the wheat and bought library here asap.

I know this is an old GotM, but I recently bought Gods & Kings and started playing some older GotMs to get back into it.

I am curious if anyone knows how it is possible to get 500 Gold by Turn 19 (since t24 2nd city in this case means it was bought on t19)?

With no Military, I don't think you will be able to Ask Tribute from that many City-States. I didn't think a Scout would count for threatening purposes. Is a lone Warrior enough to scare them?

You do have 1 Resource (Silver) to sell, but looking at the other 3 AIs on this continent, none of them have anywhere near enough Gold to trade for it (high is 142 through t19).

It feels like I am missing something.

 

[Halcyan2]

I know this is an old GotM, but I recently bought Gods & Kings and started playing some older GotMs to get back into it.

I am curious if anyone knows how it is possible to get 500 Gold by Turn 19 (since t24 2nd city in this case means it was bought on t19)?

With no Military, I don't think you will be able to Ask Tribute from that many City-States. I didn't think a Scout would count for threatening purposes. Is a lone Warrior enough to scare them?

You do have 1 Resource (Silver) to sell, but looking at the other 3 AIs on this continent, none of them have anywhere near enough Gold to trade for it (high is 142 through t19).

It feels like I am missing something.

pkf settled on the silver, so as soon as he researched Mining, he can trade it away (for as much as 240 gold). Ancient ruins could provide as much as 100 gold each. And if you meet a couple of city states (30 each), you can make 500.

Also, you can get "lucky" if you talk with Isabella (Spain) right after she discovers a Natural Wonder (giving her as much as 500 gold). That can help ensure you get full price for the silver (240), and you can also get a loan from her (GPT for lump sum). I'm guessing Isabella is probably the best way to get gold in the early game.

 

[Monthar]

There's also the whole trade a resource for gold, DoW them, and repeat with the other AI's until you have all the gold you can get.

 

[Muaziz]

Ancient ruins could provide as much as 100 gold each.

I completely forgot about that! Based on some more reading, it looks like you can bully some City-States with just a Scout which I did not know. And since you can also get your Scout upgraded to Archer or Warrior into Spear from Ancient Ruins, there are a lot more ways to get early Gold that I thought...

The great thing about reading these reports is that I am realizing how little I know compared to the good players. I had gotten quite good back in Civ4, but I feel like a complete noob when I read these reports.

My Diplo Victory was on turn 264 -- which is pretty much an eternity compared to pkf's amazing sub 200 win.

Edit: Thanks a lot for the responses!

 

[Arnold_T]

Yes, the tommynt-style AI abuse for all the AI's gold is amazingly effective. I don't think you should spend too much time on perfecting it though, since I've heard that in BNW it will be pretty much eliminated. You will need to be at "Friend" status with an AI before he/she will be stupid enough to go for lump sum gold trade with you.

 

[Muaziz]

So i replayed this map yet again, soaking in whatever gleaming insight I could from my first play-through and all of the valuable information in this thread. Despite this enormous information advantage, the best I could manage was a turn 226 Diplo Victory. While that would have been good enough for a top 10 finish, that finish came with unfair game knowledge.

I understand the early game very well and have a great sense of how to min/max during the first 50 turns or so. I just feel that after that, I must be doing dumb things to end up so far behind. I am trying to find what I am doing wrong.

Tracking against pkf's game, I was able to get to Education on turn 94, but that would have been at least a turn earlier if I built HG before the Settler (as pkf had done in his game). But after that I seemed to fall farther and farther behind. So I have a number of questions that will hopefully help me improve:

1) Do you work max food rather than Science specialists during the mid game? Not sure how this trade-off works since more food means more pop which in turn means more Science. The downside is that it will slow down your Great Scientist production.

2) Do you bulb Great Scientists to get to Plastics ASAP? In my game I was saving them for the end. But I couldn't find a chart that shows me how many beakers a GS will give at a given point in the game. If anyone knows a link that would be great too.

3) I detoured tech-wise for Chemistry and Fertilizer even though they are not on the teach path for Globalization. It seemed like the best way to grow faster. Just not sure how to get the mid to high 20 city sizes without the improved Farms. Bad idea?

4) pkf "took and annexed Stockholm ~t120 for another 60 beakers." I couldn't take it until at least 10 turns later due to a war with Ethiopia. However, it provided nowhere near 60 beakers since it lost half its size on conquest (from 8 down to 4). It did have a Library already built but that was about it. Didn't seem to make much a dent towards Victory.

5) How important is it to work on getting Maritime City-States as allies ASAP for the extra food? It is something I did not do in this game, but thought it might explain the faster pop growth from other players.

6) How did pkf get that Silver tile from Lhasa? By the time you can get a City near there, that Silver should have been LONG gone?? Is there a way to prevent a City-State from taking over influence of a resource tile near its borders?

7) Where did pkf's Aluminum come from? Even though I was Allies with City-States that had it, I never got it. I assumed that was because even though I can see it, they can't actually mine it until THEY have the tech. Is that correct? Later I can build a recycling center to get it, but wasn't sure about why I was not getting it from Allied CS even though it showed up when I inspected them.

Sorry for all the questions, but I hope this will allow me to better understand a lot of the mid-game dynamics.

 

[pkf]

1) Fill Science specialists asap. You need to pop as many GS as possible before you get them from wonders and increase the GP costs.
Hence early growth (before education) is key.

2) If you have one to spare (that you don't need for the final bulb), bulbing plastics is a great way to speed things up. The amount of beakers generated equals your research during the last 8 turns before the bulb. Using Oxford is sometimes worth it, highly depends on your game/beakers.

3) Don't. 20 pop in all cities is not as valuable as 10-15 pop cities working full specialists, simply because it comes too late.

4) Annex as soon as resistance ends and lock food tiles until 6-8 pop. Buy sci buildings and fill specialists right away.

5) Very.

6) On this difficulty level CS take quite a while to expand their borders. I had my city there quite early and bought the tile.

7) Not 100% sure but I think your assumption is correct, they need the tech. I used a Great General on the aluminium near Addis Ababa.

Bottom line - early on, growth is most important. As soon as you can get Education, always fill all scientist slots. Consider working culture and engineer specialists as well if a city can still grow while doing so. 8 turns before you start the final bulbing, lock all cities to max science and ignore growth.

 

[Muaziz]

I played this map a 3rd time now and was able to complete the UN on t194. It took 7 turns to build since I only had 1 Great Engineer. I always find it real tough to have a City actually generate a GE since when you are tech'ing fast, your GS points tend to easily eclipse your GE points. So you need to plan very carefully.

I followed a much more aggressive growth approach and managed to eventually Ally both Maritime City-States. Managed a t88 Education with t99 Acoustics and t168 Plastics. I waited to build Oxford to pop Plastics, but in hindsight, it might have been better to build it earlier and pop Scientific Theory instead of waiting a lot longer.

I was also delayed by about 3 turns having not paid close enough attention to Culture. So I had to wait on the last Social Policy to bulb the last two techs. Didn't help that Kuala Lumpur (Culture City-State) always got angry with me. I guess that was a result of me having to DoW on them much earlier in the game to avoid getting an extra Social Policy right before Renaissance. So that was bad luck there.

Not sure Annexing Stockholm worked well for me. Yes it did eventually provide some extra Science, but it really messed up my Culture forecasting. On top of that, you have to buy a University there as well since it would take far too long to build one. I felt like I could have spent that extra Gold buying an extra Research Lab. I only did buy two (and built none) for Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

On turn 203 however, I did not win the UN vote due to constant Coups and Election Shenanigans. Apparently the AI can perform these tasks constantly, not just during the official City-State elections (every 14 turns iirc). That also cost me at least one turn on delayed Culture after blowing 1k Gold for 1 turn's worth of Ally (followed by going all the way down to 10 friendship).

Basically, the City-State diplomacy system is a joke. I like the ideas behind Coups, but it is incredibly random, even when you have had your own Spy there forever. I guess the only viable strategy is to DoW all the not-so-friendly Civs (England and Ethiopia in this case) to prevent that. Pretty lame. Also, having to buy off 11 City-States to win seems like a lot.

Maybe another thing I should have done was to keep one of my Spies for Counter-Intelligence in my Capitol. Maybe if I had killed off some enemy Spies early, I wouldn't have had to deal with as much of a mess at the end?

Another thing I learned from reading a couple of the reports is that Citadels are really good for stealing territory. I had no idea about that. I thought they just provided the defensive bonuses. Oops.