TSG 61 After Actions

[Finnrat]

Attila going for Cultural Victory and you didn't choose Honor opener? I would say that might be a bad decision, but you proofed otherwise.

 

[Arilian]

Actually the honor opener would have been a very bad choice...

 

[Hieschen]

Actually the honor opener would have been a very bad choice...

I would be interested if you could elaborate on this if you don't mind. I finished in 286, without utopia prebuild, so around 20 turns above you. U think that it miht actually cost this many turns? I would think that going through patronage was better overall than having to fill out the honor tree in the end. But i always end up with an overflow policy, so opening honor seems not really an error?

 

[Merenptah]

Thanks for posting this very nice save and interesting idea of a cultural victory with Attila and raging barbs which I enjoyed very much.

Played this very quickly due to RL time pressure, but it was fun to play Attila on King and conquer a whole continent with Ancient/Classical era units. I did a bit of role play and so I teched BW right after Writing and even built the Statue of Zeus (not planned but it was still there on T93 which is very unusual) and then took over the world with Horse Archers and Battering Rams. I also opened Honor first and got a bit of culture from killing barbs initially before starting my war campaign.

Major mistake was popping a GE midgame just one turn before my next GA was due because I wasn't paying attention. Also, I should have farmed barbs more as it can really add up, but I got bored fairly quickly of the clickfest on every turn which was just taking too long. Pikeman and Crossbows gave like 16 Culture per pop so it's not so bad actually and it is certainly feasible to farm several barb camps throughout the entire game in particular on a map and level like this one where you can have a whole continent to yourself relatively soon; and Horse Archer do the job all the way to Musketman. In addition, I couldn't be bothered to do a prebuild for Utopia; it took 9 turns to hard-built from scratch in the capital where I had Factory and Hydro Plant, a mine on every hill not to mention that unwanted Manufactory.

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Spoiler :

Game: Civ5 GOTM 61
Date submitted: 2013-05-23
Reference number: 29036
Your name: Merenptah
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1700AD
Turns played: 250
Base score: 1575
Final score: 3150
Time played: 3:54:00
Submitted save: TSG61 Merenptah T250CV.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Merenptah_C506101.Civ5Save

Screenshots

Spoiler :

Native cities


Other cities


Max Culture city breakdown


Farming Barbs

How did the terrain and map affect your early decisions?
Coastal location discovered east of capital with Desert, Marble, and Mountain was too good not to take for a second city.

What were your initial priorities?
Build a solid Wonder based foundation for a tall empire and get an army ready for world conquest.

BO Cap: Monument, Worker (to get those extra 2 Hammers from the Horse Pasture ASAP), Granary, Scout, The Great Library (risky late start on T29; had Monument of the Gods from meeting Religious CSs so I took Aristocracy instead of Legalism as my 3rd SP on T28 and decided to give it a shot), National College (T49)

Second city founded on Silver next to Marble on NC completion.

Initial buy order: Warrior, Settler; second worker stolen from Genoa after settling 2nd city

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
High focus on World Wonders. Wasn’t worried about an early attack by the AI, and didn’t feel I had to attack my neighbours early to prevent an overwhelming invasion later.

How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
Built two cities and decided to acquire all other cities on my continent: puppet capitals and raze the rest (except for Barcelona because it had a unique lux, i.e. Sugar).

How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
As usual I did not share embassies with anyone. Ramses was afraid of me when all I had was two Warriors and a Scout. Elizabeth and Isabel were friendly and hated Ramses as well as each other. Perfect!

How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?

Religion
Monument of the Gods, Tithe, Cathedrals, Religious Community, Relinquary

Monument of the Gods and Religious Community provided a great production boost

Relinquary proved rather weak; should be 100Faith really ...

Spying
Just placed recruits in capital for training which went fairly quickly since I was the tech leader and all of my neighbours were trying to steal tech from me. And with each new recruit I would relocate the trained spy to a Cultural CS for election rigging.

What tech path did you follow and why?
Solid start and finish but got sucked into compulsive Wonder building midgame and so I teched the lower part of the tree after Education instead of going for Astronomy / Acoustics first.

Writing -> Calendar -> Philosophy (GL) -> Bronze Working -> The Wheel -> Masonry -> Currency -> Horseback Riding -> Drama and Poetry -> Civil Service -> Education -> Iron Working (Colossus) -> Engineering (The Great Wall) -> Metal Casting (Workshops) -> Chivalry (Alhambra)-> Physics (Notre Dame) -> Machinery (Ironworks) -> Astronomy (Observatory) -> Acoustics -> Architecture -> Navigation -> Archaeology (Oxford) -> Printing Press -> Scientific Theory -> Radio -> Gunpowder -> Metallurgy -> Chemistry -> Industrialization -> Military Science

Were there any wars and who started them?
Elizabeth went to war with Egypt early capturing Thebes on T69. Isabel then declared war on Elizabeth on T90. I wanted to take this opportunity to sneak attack Madrid which I did on T102 and captured it on T103 . As soon as I wiped out Spain razing it’s other two cities on T111, I declared war on Elizabeth capturing London on T120 and razing another English city which I got in a peace agreement that same turn. Not to be idle during peace time, I declared on Ramses and took out Egypt’s only city which was between London and Thebes wiping out Ramses as well on T129. Then I went to war again with Elizabeth taking Thebes 141 and wiping her out T151 by taking her last city.

After that it was all peaceful as I had not even met any of the civs on the other continent; and when I did they all loved me and knew nothing of my warmongering.

What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Straightforward Cultural SP progression except for opening and finishing with Honor.

Honor -> Full Tradition -> Piety -> Religious Tolerance -> Liberty -> Representation -> Full Freedom -> Finish Liberty -> Finish Piety -> Finish Honor

What Wonders did you build or miss out on?
With “Monument of the Gods” as Pantheon Belief and Egypt losing its Capital City to England on turn 69 I entered full Wonder spamming mode. Even built Statue of Zeus since it was still available on T93 and I was just about to start my continental conquest. Having two cities also worked out well with sharing the build load; coastal city had Marble and with Religious Community and Pop15 it had the same built time for WW as the capital itself.

I missed out on the Great Lighthouse built by Elizabeth and which I captured later; and also missed out on Himeji Castle and Forbidden Palace built on another continent.

Did you build any of the Wonders of the Ancient World and if so, were they useful?

I built all three.

Temple of Artemis is a great substitute for Fertility Rites, and a great combination with Monument of the Gods at Emperor level or below when you are planning to build at least 6 Ancient/Classical World Wonders.

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus is just a nice to have in my opinion: a bit more Gold, nothing special, but it did help me buy a University in the 2nd city at least two turns earlier thanks to the 100g from consuming my first GP (AI did not have enough Gold so I could not have bought it earlier even with loans).

Statue of Zeus is even more luckluster, definitely not necessary even for a domination victory but it worked well with Attila role play and quick capturing of cities with Horse Archers and Battering Rams with more time spent on moving troops than sieging cities.

Were your UUs helpful for a Cultural Victory?

Like any ranged unit, Horse Archers are perfect for farming Barb camps for Culture in conjunction with the Honor opener. But HA are more fun, because you can just clear the camp when you get bored and look for the next one.

Battering Rams are pretty amazing for taking cities; unfortunately I realized this very late otherwise I would have gone to war with Spain much earlier.

 

[Arilian]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arilian
Actually the honor opener would have been a very bad choice...
I would be interested if you could elaborate on this if you don't mind. I finished in 286, without utopia prebuild, so around 20 turns above you. U think that it miht actually cost this many turns? I would think that going through patronage was better overall than having to fill out the honor tree in the end. But i always end up with an overflow policy, so opening honor seems not really an error?


Seems like I have been proved wrong already (see above)

 

[Merenptah]

Around turn 100, I noticed that I'm always short on money and the 3 civs on my continent weren't good trade partners (they shouldn't live long anyway), so I went for Liberty finisher fast to get a Great Admiral to explore. Good thing he didn't run into barbs.

Admirals can cross oceans without the need of Astronomy?

Never considered that option ... brilliant!

 

[Merenptah]

1. On my home continent, I decimated Egypt, Spain, and England, taking all of their wonder-laden capitals. However, I left all their other cities alone (didn't want to deal with crappy puppets and unhappiness). In hindsight, I wonder if I should have taken them too, for their meager contributions to science/gold? Is it better to puppet nearly everything? Or just ignore it (or raze it)?

I felt that razing everything possible was the right approach for a cultural Attila with Honor since more wasteland = more barbs = more culture farming opportunities; and those Horse Archers lasted for the entire game.

 

[Merenptah]

Culture Victory
Game date:1685AD
Turns played:247

Congrats on your nice finish time!

Three HA and two rams were enough to take over my continent, i wish i got few more i could have went after other continent faster. I must say Attila CV was a very counterintuitive but fun set up, thanks HR.

I knew I had overdone it but I didn't know by how much: had six HA in my initial army and build two additional ones later, for a total of eight HAs!. But in all honesty I don't think I could have done it with just three HAs ... even with SoZ.

 

[Halcyan2]

I knew I had overdone it but I didn't know by how much: had six HA in my initial army and build two additional ones later, for a total of eight HAs!. But in all honesty I don't think I could have done it with just three HAs ... even with SoZ.

I mainly used 4 Horse Archers, 1 Battering Ram, and 1 Horseman (which became a Knight).

That was enough to take Thebes, Madrid, and London (which had combat strengths of around 15-20). It was sufficient to take down Carthage and Washington D.C. (with combat strengths of about 30). However, Onondaga was much harder since it had reached a strength of 40. I was gradually whittling it down with my 4 Horse Archers and even got it to halfway strength, until my support army of cannons and riflemen arrived! Of course this was all w/o the Statue of Zeus, which was in the city I was trying to conquer!

 

[Maxym]

Congrats on your nice finish time!



I knew I had overdone it but I didn't know by how much: had six HA in my initial army and build two additional ones later, for a total of eight HAs!. But in all honesty I don't think I could have done it with just three HAs ... even with SoZ.

Thank You

I wish I built more, it's a leftover from my early days with civ 5 when I thought an army of four archers and initial warrior was an unstoppable combination. I have often stayed at that, just upgrading them, and before they nerfed Gatlings never bothered with any other units. So I tend to fight light even now when 6 archer to CB, is my standard. And pillage extensively plus bring damaged melee to soak up damage. That's why I never do well in straight domination games, I just don't build enough units.

HAs are sick, I was surprised they were effective against 50 strength cities with SoZ though. I did not have much luck with barbs besides initial camp next to cap and one more I had to clear before Liz got it I had nothing to farm. I did keep their cities so not a lot of empty space to spawn them.

 

[Vintage Port]

Turn 293 Culture Victory

Not bad considering I've probably only done 3 CVs total and this is my best finish. I just find them frustrating, wishing I could increase my Culture faster.

A few things I could have likely done better:

1) I had to use my last 3-4 Artists to keep the Golden Age rolling. Wasn't a problem but in the early 200s I wonder if I should have planted a GA and just let my happiness get me the next Golden age? hmm. not sure how that plays out over the long run. I likely had 84-96 happiness at that time so it shouldn't have been too long for a golden age. Thoughts?
2) Cathederals - ugh. Totally dropped the ball on that one. I never go for them and forgot they have an artist slot. Oh well.
3) stayed peaceful other than taking Egypt's capital. Egypt never founded a 2nd city - maybe because I DoW'd him a few times to keep him in line. Kept beating on him. (See screenshot below where he is afraid while also asking for friendship - but he hates me???? ) I probably should have taken over Spain and England to speed up my victory.
4) stayed @ 2 cities. Never annex'd Thebes. I went back after the game to a point mid 200s to see if I annex Thebes and rush bought all the culture buildings if it would speed up my social policies. It seemed that the number of turns stayed the same whether I had Thebes as a puppet or if I annexed it and bought all the Cbuildings and ran specialists. And of course Thebes had some wonders that were build before I took it.
5) Too late allying Milan. Not sure what I was thinking as I had the gold for it but was sleeping at the wheel.
6) Opened honor and put a few points in Honor initially as I thought I was going to be warmongering and puppeting a bunch of cities. Would have been better to roll with Liberty, even with the Barb farming. I did enjoy the barb hunting though.

Few other comments:

1) This was my first attempt at a prebuild with overflow hammers. Picture below. When it was all said and done I could build Utopia in 7 turns. Is that decent? See picture below when I was 2 turns out - I was 2.7 hammers short of finishing it in 6 turns I must have stared at the screen for 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to get 2.7 more hammers. Someone please tell me that I missed something for next time. Utopia in 6 turns would have been nice. Likely a different prebuild unit/building next time. Ugh...
1b) Note that when I started my prebuild I had to still convert a few great sites to mines. I tried planting a few on hills this time and a couple on Silver (not the best idea but oh well).
2) Spain and England were total wastes on my continent. Zero money, both disliked me for wiping Egypt off the map. Arabia, Iroquois, and Carthage loved me and ate up all my lux. I should have tried to hit Astronomy earlier and gone sailing.
3) I had a ton of cash and was pretty much able to rush buy almost all key buildings.
4) Science lagged bigtime. I was late getting into patronage to take Scholasticism to help out science wise. I was also slow to get public schools as I tried to get all the key techs mid-game to get all the wonders. I don't think I missed many wonders other than HCastle.
5) I burned 2 GS and used Oxford to get into Plastics and rushed Cristo with a GE. Timed that nicely, just wish it was earlier. I think it was maybe turn 260? hmm. Definitely too late. More science would have been nice but not sure how as I was trying to get all the key wonders. Maybe too many wonders? If that is possible
6) was allied with all CS from about turn 200-210 on.

Definitely a fun game but I realize I have no idea what I'm doing in a culture victory - and I'm still to peaceful I think. Not enough puppets.

 

[ellgieff]

Could someone point me to a link about the "overflow prebuild"? I'm not sure I get what it's even about, but have seen a few people mention it in here.

 

[Monthar]

Here ya go. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419352&highlight=overflow

 

[ellgieff]

Here ya go. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419352&highlight=overflow

Thanks, appreciated!

 

[Maxym]

@ VP

It seems you got a lot of big wonders in queue but not much for intermediate steps. First two are redundant, prebuild walls or something in 120 range not worker, and you could have easily shaved off one more turn by chopping that last forest I see in SW corner of cap screen. Pre chop then give her on 2nd last turn. Or even better two forest tiles in the west outside of working radius.

 

[Vintage Port]

@ VP

It seems you got a lot of big wonders in queue but not much for intermediate steps. First two are redundant, prebuild walls or something in 120 range not worker, and you could have easily shaved off one more turn by chopping that last forest I see in SW corner of cap screen. Pre chop then give her on 2nd last turn. Or even better two forest tiles in the west outside of working radius.

Good call on the walls (something a bit higher on the hammers). Yeah those 2 forest hills in the 4th-5th ring could have been chopped and knocking my Utopia build down to 6 turns. I went back later and took another look - I totally missed them...

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Pommeau]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 61
Date submitted: 2013-05-27
Reference number: 29052
Your name: Pommeau
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1940AD
Turns played: 360
Base score: 757
Final score: 1051
Time played: 4:19:00
Submitted save: Attila_0360 AD-1940.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Pommeau_C506101.Civ5Save

First I admit replaying 2 turns, both linked to the $%?&**(() religion system. I quit playing CIV V shortly after buying Gods and Kings. Game felt too drastically changed and couldn't or didn't want to adapt. Could win as easily at level 6 without changing my playing style and I was worthless at level 7. After a few month off I came back and found the TSG series. Long story short I'm still in the middle of my Learning curve of G&K.

When pantheon poped up i was decided to get whatever bonus the pastures would provide and, since CPU had already took it, threw myself on the plantation instead. I reloaded and chose an even worthless choice : gold and silver . I sticked to those tiles too long, delaying my growth and losing a gazilion turns in the process.

Same thing or so happened with my religion. Fiirst belief gets to be chosen amidst only a few, whereas second one has a broader choici with scrollable list. Upon founding my religion I figured that I must have forgot to scroll the first belief list (wich I later found out, isn't scrollable). So I ended up replaying this turn the exact way I had done the first time around. If this gets to invalidate my submission, I won't cry, I deserve it.

I Played dumbly an under the radar, sedentar culture games with 3 cities built. Settled on the hill, than near ocean and mountain and finally adjacent to the 3 wheat tiles wich looked way better than they actually were.

Honor openenr, than tradition and liberty till the lowering culture cost for next settled cities. Had to wait for that one to settle 2nd city, that was another blatant mistake. Piety untill freedom opened than closed then filling the remainer keeping honor for last with great general appearing conveniently 2 turns before I got doubleDoWed.

Managed to get Alhambra, hermitage, and 2 wonders that extend GA. Those were a blessing. Didn't get cathedral and lagged for first GA to pop up. Was friendly with everyone all the way (attila friend with everybody : lol). Got doubleDoWed by arabs and egypt at the very end. Cultural games elude my understanding I think. How can some of u guys conquer the hole map or so and not have unovercomeable cutural penalties for next SPs, that's beyond me.

looking forward to improving a bit !

 

[Vintage Port]

How can some of u guys conquer the hole map or so and not have unovercomeable cutural penalties for next SPs, that's beyond me.

Puppeted cities don't increase social policy costs. If you annex them they will increase it. For the most part just keep them as puppets adding to your empire as they provide gold, some science and a bit of culture.

More puppets should allow more gold so you can rush buy buildings and speed up your victories. Just have to stay on happiness.

Culture game still baffle me a little as I struggle with science for a good portion of the game.

The "gold and silver pantheon" Religious Idols is quite good on this map. But you are correct if you work all the tiles too early your growth will by stunted.

I took this pantheon as well but did not work all the tiles until I was working all farmed river tiles as well as my planted artist landmarks.

Working too many mines early in the game is indeed a recipe for disaster. Even mid game I had some silver I wasn't working as I wanted to keep growing my city.

Growth and increased population will eventually allow you to work enough specialists as well as mines.

 

[Gooble]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 61
Date submitted: 2013-05-30
Reference number: 29067
Your name: Gooble
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1816AD
Turns played: 278
Base score: 1653
Final score: 3005
Time played: 6:24:00
Submitted save: TSG61_Gooble.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Gooble_C506101.Civ5Save

Not a bad result for me, but I felt it was very slow. What is the best number of own cities for max. culture? I had my cap + 1 other city at the coast east. My cap had 600 culture/turn by the end, my second about 150 c/t. I got a fair amount of culture killing barbarians (chose honour as 2nd social policy), but when compared to the approx. 1200 culture/turn I had overall by the end, it doesn't seem so much.

 

[glory7]

Turn 293 Culture Victory


1) This was my first attempt at a prebuild with overflow hammers. Picture below. When it was all said and done I could build Utopia in 7 turns. Is that decent? See picture below when I was 2 turns out - I was 2.7 hammers short of finishing it in 6 turns I must have stared at the screen for 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to get 2.7 more hammers. Someone please tell me that I missed something for next time. Utopia in 6 turns would have been nice. Likely a different prebuild unit/building next time. Ugh...

That's a pretty nice prebuild (7 turns), especially given that it's your first attempt for it.

For the screenshot, I think you should have chopped SW forest (3rd ring) to make it 6 turns.