TSG1 After Action Report

[Erkon]

Hi everyone and welcome to the TSG1 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), and the most important: your path to glory! This post will be updated with the results at the end of the two week period (sorted by date and score). Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay). The game will not be closed as such, but after two weeks, the results will be compiled, and will not necessarily be updated with reports coming in afterwards.

 

[Windfury]

Well I just finished my game, I was going to do a halfway point post, but I forgot to, so here's what happened. I won a Domination Victory in 1360 AD.

TLDR walk though explanation in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

I started by settling in place, researching AH and finding the horses to the south and then scouting around and I discovered Budapest and Venice fairly quickly, along with Bismarck. I settled a city in between Rome and Venice, and got a little lucky with the fact that when I discovered Iron Working a few turns later that my new city had Iron just outside it's radius. Then I took out Budapest at Venice's request and got their Iron as well. I quickly got horseback riding and sent a force of Legion and Horseman up to Bismarck taking him out before he could expand.

I met the rest of the Civs quickly after that as I explored east of Berlin, but couldn't find their homelands for a long time, I did after wading through all the city states in the middle of the map, and spending a little time embarked and sliding along the northern cost until i found the Japanese empire. He was the biggest of my remaining rivals, and my first target. I used a Great General, 2 Legions and a Ballista to whittle away at his northern cities, and 2 horseman attacking from the area where China and Montezuma were in a pincer move taking them out.

I discovered Steel and Chivalry right after the last Japanese City fell, so I upgraded my 2 Legions to Longswordsmen and my Horseman to Knights, stopping only to heal my units, i attacked China next, she only had 2 cities, which fell quickly, then I hit Montezuma and his 3 cities, leaving only Darius until last.

I bribed Darius into opening borders with me, and i slowly moved my Very Experienced Ballista, 1 Knight and the 2 Longswordsmen to just outside Persopolis, bypassing his other cities. When i could get my forces no closer, I declared war on him, and used my 2 attacks a turn Ballista and other forces to take Persopolis in 2 turns.

EDIT: I wasn't aware that this was a bug, I thought with the temporary Open borders that this was intended, so that you had to be aware of who you opened borders with. Oh well, I would've won anyways, just delayed a few more turns is all.

I just have to say, in Civ 4, I was never a warmonger. I hated the stack combat and could never quite get the hang of just how many forces were needed. So far in Civ 5, I love combat and war, and it's amazing what a small force of experienced fighters can do if you control them properly and carefully.

I played a couple of the Civ 4 GOTM the last few months, but I was never much good at them, I'm looking forward to this series, because as far as I'm concerned Civ 5 is my favorite of the series so far.

PS. I know this is a training series, but are we uploading the final save as we did for the Civ 4 GOTM or just not yet? If we are, could someone point me in the right direction.

PPS. A Pangaea map with so many choke points in it for the first game was a little mean hehe

Edit: Files attached. I hope this is the replay you meant, I didn't actually see it after my game ended, I'll have to look to see how to watch it. Thanks for the congrats oh, and Yay for first public submission

 

[leif erikson]

PS. I know this is a training series, but are we uploading the final save as we did for the Civ 4 GOTM or just not yet? If we are, could someone point me in the right direction.

We have not had time yet to develop an upload system. We would appreciate your attaching the final save to your post so we can use them to develop one. Also, if there is a Civ5 replay file, that would be helpful.



edit - and congrats on your first victory.

 

[cas]

1230AD dom. Weak.

Spoiler :

This was a very tedious map. Didn't really enjoy all the bottlenecks for 'pangea' but finished it anyway.

I completely over estimated the AI at this level. I've been playing on 'King' and did not play down appropriately. Should have just wiped Germany off the map with spears/archers and researched to IW asap...then navigation.

No real thought is required at this level with legions. Get them asap and keep moving. Use your promos for heals. I went:
pottery-sailing-mining-BW-calendar-IW-archer-optics...then on to navigation. Then it really didn't matter. Even navigation wasn't necessary but I wanted to embark some units across the ocean for giggles.
scout-monument-wb-buy wb-worker-barracks-buy wb-trierme-purchase spear-stonehenge-spear-purchase spear. Then some warriors for legion upgrades. Library and a couple of wonders for kicks...also not necessary. Thought I could upgrade spears to legion, but you have to use warriors. Stupid.

Took out the nearest city state with spears because they had iron (only Qty2) and I didn't. then marched on germany and continued east. Germany-Japan-China-half Persia-Aztec-rest of Persia. Did not destroy any other city states than the one next to us for iron.

I see they fixed the DoW with open borders nonsense in the latest patch. I think I pulled that on Monty just to test it. Otherwise, did not use that exploit.

Next!

View attachment cas TS1 Rome 1230AD dom.Civ5Save

cas

 

[ruskyandrei]

Forgot to save before i quit so here's the SS i took

Spoiler :

Quite late, but i never was much of a warmonger and i could've easily gone culture or even science after conquering germany, but i was undecided too long and i just ended up delaying everything.

Loved it, looking forward to the next one.

EDIT: Uploaded replay file.

 

[karmina]

Domination 1050 AD.

Overkill with knights, longswords and tons of workers vs. jaguars, archers, warriors and a couple of spears. Honestly, whats up with the AI at this lvl of difficulty? Nobody had more than 3 cities, and not a single sword or crossbow. I hardly built libs, researched every single medieval tech, with beelining I probably could have had rifles and cavalry at that time...

Built only two cities and puppeted most of the rest, 3-4 annexed for purchasing iron tiles. Started with Plantations then Sailing, then Iron Working, then Markets. All 5 Honor policies and nothing else.

Lessons learned:
1. I love the new Monty
2. Combat system is brilliant. Funny they finally had the courage to do it this way...after all its at least 16 years old, Panzer General had exactly the same system.
3. The very best about it: no more losing your units at 90% win chance! Combat prediction is finally reliable.
4. Gold and unhappiness are crucial, but easy to control at least on this difficulty lvl...in the end I paid some 60gpt for roads alone, much more for units, and still making 50gpt income.
5. In the beginning cities can be reliably conquered with 3 warriors within 2 turns.
6. Triremes are pretty powerful vs. land units.
7. I Love Civ5

Lessons not learned:
I had 2 allied city states, but couldn't figure out the exact benefits I got...all I know is that I paid them thousands of gold during the game.

 

[waytofailself]

First Post about the Game: Turns 0-100
Second Post About the Game: Turns 100-177
This Post: Turns 177-End
Final Score: 3557
End Year: 1580

Where we last left off Rome was finishing the unnecessary Japan mop up. That left Persia, Azteks, and a mystery people that was quickly revealed to me to be China. By far my most powerful adversary was Persia, as they actually had a comparable score to me. But with my military and technology advantage, it's just a matter of smacking around their Immortals with my Guns. That's right...GUNS.

Stats and Figures at the Start of My Last Push

Spoiler :

Already a pretty lopsided game with me all the way on the other side of the world from the rest of the people. I kind of wish there was just more than me and backwards Germany on our side. I also decided to go for honor. I wish I could say why -- the upgrade at half costs just seemed like a nice perk and I figured it was the best military option of what was available.

Summary of the Rest of the Game
Clean up! Clean up! Everybody! Everywhere!

Spoiler :

First, my military superiority:


I pushed forward and was a little bit of a shame I didn't take a picture before I took my first Persian city. I moved my far more advanced units (Musketmen and Longswords). We steamrolled down Persepolis real easily.


After freeing Genoa and leaving the Persian empire in tatters this is what the overhead view looks like:


Eventually I run out of cities to attack from Persia and decide to go after the Azteks then the Chinese. Persia was the only other Civ in the Renaissance when I started this last push, so you can imagine how this goes...

PEW PEW PEW


I ended up destroying Monty on accident, which meant I could have finished a little earlier. Oh well.

View right before I finished the game and steamrolled Beijing:


View of my Cities. I had a lot of puppet states. A lot more than I would have liked but maybe that's the way to go in this Civ:


My Empire:

And I was rated as Julius Cesar. Hey, wait a minute!

ENDGAME
Too bad I noobed it up the first time and ended the game and exited to menu because I thought I'd have another chance to cap the score. Turns out this isn't Civ IV. Fortunately, I saved just before the final attack that destroyed China's capital.

Spoiler :

What I've Learned About Civ V from This Game:
-- I was not expecting to do so well, but I have a feeling being so isolated so early helped.
-- I was shocked that I could not trade techs (unless I missed the research that lets me or didn't read the previews enough). That's going to make the higher difficulties more interesting.
-- I still am not exactly sure of the role of city states, but I really liked them. I think I may have thrown too much money at them, but at least I know what they do.
-- I managed to do fine pumping out four cities really early, but I have a feeling on higher difficulties the happiness hit is going to be tough to overcome.
-- I have a lot to learn about this game.
-- I wish there was more to the game finish then just one screen. Maybe that came with the expansions, I don't know -- but I was hoping to watch a little recap from the replay file. How do you open and play the replay anyway?
-- I don't need nearly as many workers, and with capturing so many workers I ended up having to destroy a bunch of them.
-- I have no idea what to do with my early $. Get city state help? Or go for key city tiles. I was a little surprised at how slow the cities and the amount of tiles grew.

Thanks again for making the game. Hopefully I won't be a world away from most of the competition next time (so I can get crushed!)

 

[Xger]

The early times:

Spoiler :

First build was scout, then a monument. I like getting a few social policies early, and hitting up honor quickly seemed like a good idea for warmongering.
I build a worker next, then stonehedge for more policies. When I get the gold I buy a work boat, and then a settler eventually.
As for tech, I went to grab calendar as fast as possible to get the happiness rolling. After that I went for sailing, then writing for the GL, though I messed up the slingshot because I hadn't researched trapping yet. Iron working was next.

I found Budapest, German scout, Venice, Berlin in that order. As soon as I found Venice I pumped gold into them to make them an ally so that I could get the free food.

I pump out a few chariot archers, 1 legion, and was gifted 1 swordsman from Budapest (in my exploring/gold hunting/exp hunting I killed a barb encampment for them) and head towards Germany. Raze his first city, annex Berlin and Hamburg as both had 2 lux tiles I wanted bought and improved asap.

The Dark Ages

Spoiler :

As I had never gone past Germany I had no idea where anyone/anything was. A Persian immortal wandered into German territory, so I thought they were close. Boy was I wrong. I spent the rest of the dark ages uncovering the section of largely empty land. For a while I thought I was on an island, and eventually I realized I had missed a small passable tract of land south of Singaporean territory. When my exploring chariot reached it, the world was alive again.

Beginning of the end (for the AI)

Spoiler :

The first thing I see after crossing the tract of land is an Aztec Scout and I meet Monty. He is quite arrogant. Shortly after that I see the Monaco border and find it under attack by Japan. At this point I had upgraded my other chariot archer to a knight and upgraded to 2 longswordsmen as well as having a ballista, I had started their trek once I saw the tract of land, so they were 4-5 turns away. I notice several severely weakened troops of Japans, decide that right after our first meeting, it was time for war. Using my chariot archer, I took out 3 troops, got a couple promotions, and now Monaco was an ally. This meant I could upgrade to a knight and really tear up the spearmen and archers Japan had. About this time Monty asks for a MA against Persia, I say wait 10 turns. I meet China, and both Monty and China ask me to do a pact of secrecy against Japan....who we are all at war with.

My knight gets a few more promotions (he can now blitz and heals some every turn regardless) and my other troops arrive. I get a number of promotions for my other knight and the Japanese cities fall easily, I didn't even lost a unit. He gives me everything he can including his last city that isn't his new capitol. The 10 turns for Persia comes up, and my troops head there. My knights get even stronger attacking a 1 pop Persian city, they both blitz and heal every turn, and one of them has 4 movement points. These two cross quickly to the Persian Capitol, and take it in 2 turns. I'm up to riflemen and a cannon for my other troops, and have purchased two more cavalry.

During this time, I also allied with Helsinki and Genoa, both maritime. I took out Singapore to make me not have to pay Helsinki for a while which got me Tyre as well. The maritime states at this point are giving 5 food for Rome and 3 food for each city. So 15 bonus food in the capitol and 9 in every city. Maritime=awesome.

The Holy Roman Empire rules the world!

Spoiler :

This part is actually somewhat boring and anti-climatic. I wait to upgrade my uber knights to uber cavalry. Once I do, the two of them race ahead of my troops and finish off Monty's capital in a single turn. Not too much longer until they reach Beijing and take it down (with the help of a normal cavalry, he wanted to feel involved). By the time I take down Beijing, I have built 15 wonders (I hadn't actually built a military unit in a while) and am in a 30 turn golden age!!. I had the policy for 50% longer GA's, had the happiness one trigger, and finished the Taj Mahal shortly after the happiness one started. 4k gold in the treasury pulling down 250 a turn. A rather good ending for my second finished game I think.

In the end, I could have moved faster through everything. The maritime states and getting 1-2 units with lots and lots of promotions make beating the AI rather simply on this one. Also this is my first write up, so any tips or such would be nice.

EDIT: As for what was fun/not fun. I think the distance between Rome/Germany and the others seemed a bit long through movement reducing territory. I like 1UPT but that also means moving units becomes considerably more tedious and less fun. Maybe if there was another civ between it would be better.

EDIT2: Reading the thread let me find the thread let me find the orignal play through. Because I was unsure I ended up playing the last ~8 turns over to find my score because at the time I hadn't noticed the HoF. Attached is the original replay, sorry I don't have a good save.

 

[Mutineer]

My first game.

At start had technical problems with game crashing every turn. was fixes when I finally guess to switch to Version 9. It did effect first 10 turns or so, even I switch to autosafe every turn.

Spoiler :

Build scout-monument with idea to get culture. Got map from ruins. Believe I need workboats to use sea resources. So research went to sailing. build wb and what? It does not improve food yeld, only gold.. hheeh. Beling to iron working next, but no iron is city and I was a bit afraid to found other cities. Belign calendar and build stonehenge, thinking +8 culture must be good.

after that went education - trapping- philosophy and took civil service from GL.

Still at one city. Build oracle to and after that was belign to chivalry and use knights, as distances seems huge. Had barbarian invasion, as my scout and warrior die.

But eventually build barrack, stable and start to crank knights. wen took berlin, made peace and went to seek others -had no scouting pass Berlin.

About that time start to sort out how city states work. Got some going.

Took long time before find Japan. Took there capital, made peace.

all capitals I annexed straight away and see I still have a lot of happiness, so build city next to berlin, away form remained of Germany. But there bug? Bismarck come ant tell me not to build city near his borders. But I owned Berlin and it was far from rest of his cities.. My guess civ alway think form there original capital, even if they lost it.

Finally found other civs.. Mounty and CHina was small, but last one had 500+ score when I had 480.. went after big boy, took some time, had to make peace for rest of his cities, which I raise and wait for reinforcements. Eventually I took him and come with overwhelming forces again china and last Mounty..

At that time I found a lot of cities and still had something like +6 happiness and finally got into positive gold income.

End screen was dissapointed and there was no replay, or do I miss somethign?

 

[Caven]

I was looking for something simple to start my journey with civilization 5 and found that this GotM was superb place to do it: same map for everyone, simple winning conditions and a place to find help if i get stuck.

So i formulated some basic game plan and started my path to victory, luckily was a bit easier than I was afraid it would be and managed to finish it.


Basic plan

Spoiler :

After starting game i saw 2 viable tech paths:

• Econ path: Pottery into Sailing
• War path: Focusing on Iron Working

I decided upon war path for maximum effectiveness of Legionnaires, and even extended concept for fast Mathematics to grab Ballistas.

As for build order:

1. Scout - to support warrior and make scouting faster
2. Warrior - to increase my fighting strength
3. (Upon earning 140 gold buy scout)
4. Worker - to start working tiles
5. Settler - to grab iron deposits

I was planning to update build list upon timings

Social policies: Honor 1st for visible barbarians, then follow up for double experience.

How did it work in the end

Spoiler :

Well i started pursuing my basic plan, scouted with 1st warrior abit to south, and upon finding tundra moved to the north. Meanwhile my 1st scout poped up and both of them went north. Found map in ruins, destroyed 2 camps and stumble upon berlin. Meanwhile i got enough cash for my 2nd scout and sent him south, found another camp and cleared it when 2nd warrior popped out.

Left 1st scout North to observe Bismarck and wait for open borders to get through. Meanwhile i meat a Chinese scout and sold him open borders for 50g since i didn't expect to stumble upon him early.
My second scout was fog busting south since there was nothing to do at the time, while my warriors did relentless hunt for barbarians, and even earned me some early influence with Budapest.

My 1st worker got built, built a farm, a mine and was forced to sleep till i get more improvements tech.

My settler pop out about same time as iron working and i went north and made city exactly on iron source(2) for instant claim, since bismarc just created his city in my direction I decided to hasten invasion. I got my warriors into Akvinion border upgraded them and started marching north. Meanwhile I decided to expand second time for more iron and built second settler. He created city due west from Rome but was to late and Budapest managed to get it 1st. Wasn't paying attention and built city nevertheless.

Meanwhile Animal Husbandry finished, and after land buyout i was able to get new job for my and build pastures. <- at this time i found out my 1st big mistake total lack of culture and small cities.

Rome meanwhile built barracks and armory and with horses started to build 2 chariots.

Meanwhile on battle front i conquered 2 German cities and wiped 1st opponent from existence, and here i found my second mistake total lack of happiness buildings and even tho i puppet both cities i was -1.

Luckily i was starting to get early tech and could buyout work boat and grab whales.

After considering my options I decided to press on and burn China to ground before they catch up with tech. With my 1 scout 2 legionnaires and 2 chariots I started to go explore the WAST space beyond Berlin, and found 4-5 City states but no civilization. When all civilizations where in Classical Age i found 1st sign of.. Japan, sent my chariots North to check, and finally found someone, Japan to the North and Persia to the South. My 1st question was: What happened to China, did i miss them. Well i was going to toss coin to decide my target when Persia got Medieval on me... same turn I did - phew. After brief encounter with my 2 Legions (chariots were still in Northern hills of Japan) versus his city i lost one of them to 3 warriors and city barrage... and was forced to backtrack my remaining legio, luckily for me Persia wanted 10 turn peace and they payed A LOT (3 luxuries, cash, cash per turn). I agreed and hopped to use time to bring reinforcements -> legio and balista via water from Rome, chariots from North.

At this time i basically stopped caring about my empire, and was doing only some basic maintenance, some roads, trade post improvements everywhere, new town to grab more luxuries, and annexing both German towns so i had some control over them and to get 6Iron nearby Berlin.

On diplomacy side i sold excessive luxury goods to china, japan and Aztecs for fast cash and at same time started buying influence with city states to get their luxuries and food/culture.

When 10 turns passed i had my army positioned around one of Persian towns. I started new war and marched into Persia, both my chariots did their strikes on town, then my only legion entered and almost decimated his town, and upon end turn i lost both my chariots one to Darius's Immortals and second to... Genuan spearmen ( i didn't know that peace with Darius wasn't same as peace with his allied city states).
Tho city was mine, i hastily annexed it and upped my last Southern legion to longsword, rushed buy 2 more... and meanwhile lost my balista to Monaco who suddenly allied with Persia and back stabbed me, luckily my Legion was able to survive.

With my 3 LS i swiftly got both remaining Persian towns and wiped him from face of earth. Upped my last remaining Legion to LS and with powerful force of 4 LS made a slow walk to victory conquering one town after another, and swiftly wiping remaining 3 civilizations - Aztecs, China and at last Japan.

Only regret is that Japan didn't accept my peace offer (Their capital is under 50% HP besieged by 4LS) 10 turns of peace for all their remaining cities.

In home front i was building Happiness buildings like crazy and hovering whole time around 0. Gold was +100 or more due to large numbers of Markets and Trading Posts and some Wonders.

Social Poliecies where a total mess, i wasn't really planning to much and tried to get SPs that would help me solve issues i had at a time they were given.

Lessons Learned

Spoiler :

What i learned:

• Culture is important, more tiles to work on and more social policies to help expand
• Happiness is even more important, don't neglect tech to get it
• Enemies aren't willing to trade luxury goods 1 for 1 but usually at least 3 to 1
• Making peace with city states is cheap and easy, so unless i plan to conquer them in near future why not
• Gold is easy to come by, and gives easy access to units
• If you're long away from home it might be wise to conquer a City State to get a proxy city for unit production/ upgrading
• High experienced fighters are worth a lot more then untrained.

Few thoughts about city states

Spoiler :

City states are very nice addition to keep allied, especially as Greece or with patronage. Both cultural and maritime give nice bonuses for whole empire (cultural - social polices). Meanwhile militaristic are somehow odd, unless I'd need one of resources they provide I find it more useful to field units in my "army town" with gold and added bonuses (Morale/15/30exp). Tho it might be useful late game where units price will be much higher than 500gld.

And last thing if you're at war with city state you need to end it manually, since they can't even propose it.

 

[piderman]

In which I will try to go for the lowest score as I was a total noob and made way too many mistakes

Domination in 1846, score of 1210.

Rest assured, I learned a lot!

Spoiler :

I expanded reasonably early a little to the north, some nice hills with lots of production.
Encountered Germany early, didn't have too many problems with them.
Started to explore a bit more. The middle 'continent' was completely empty, wasted a lot of time there. Finally found the other civs, took a few cities but I didn't have enough units and they were too far off to get reinforcements there quickly.

I retreated and waited to research Astronomy to attack from the east side of the land. I defeated China and the Aztecs. Japan was very well defended by that time in the middle of the mountains, very hard to get to. Got two cities from Persia but the unhappiness by that time was about 15 and those cities take a long time to raze. That is definitely something to keep in mind the next time.

I was also too focused on the attack so I let the homeland slip. Lots of barbarian ships blocked my cities and destroyed my improvements so I had a few starving cities. Since the borders don't expand as fast as in Civ 4 there is always lots of room for barbarians to spawn, very annoying.

After a while I had Rifling. I could upgrade my Musketmen to Riflemen which was overpowering enough to capture Persepolis and Kyoto.

Still, it was my very first victory in Civ 5, looking forward to more, hopefully a little less noobishly

 

[BuddhaBubba]

Yeah, I took awhile but had a lot of fun doing it...

I didn't go for the quick win because I wanted to explore all the techs and social policies...

One weird thing was that it kept telling me that my trade routes were broken even though the little trade route icon was still there.

Well, the short and quick version is that I expanded northward building cities and workers to gradually pull ahead of all the other empires. Once I had cannon and cavalry I was able to crush Germany. I really like how you can make cities your puppet; more because I don't have to continually choose new build options than because of the unhappiness reduction (I hate micromanagement). Where has the city governor gone to for automated build choices, I didn't say he could have a vacation! Anyway, after Germany I built up straight to the industrial / modern era and then was able to crush japan, persia, azteca and china in approximately that order. Yeah, for one difficulty below normal, it was really quite easy. And it only crashed on me once! And my nVidia graphics chip didn't melt into the motherboard (of course I have a little cooling pad for my laptop else it would shutdown like an overheating mech

Pros:
-Only having to capture capitols instead of the whole stinking empire (which has always been the main deterrant for being a warmonger)
-Don't have to connect every stinking resource with a road (even though it says that on the tooltip for "I recommend you build a road here" worker action)
-Only having to worry about happiness rather than happiness and health
-Having an empire-wide happiness rather than per city

Cons:
-Not being able to stack workers (I think the limit should be two... it being one makes it a pain in the ass to build roads because there's always some automated work getting in the way
-Weird trade route bug (mentioned above)
-Lack of city governor
-Can't save build queues (or did they make that another key instead of Ctrl-#)
-Buying complete buildings/units instead of just being able to rush the current one
-No quick assessment of leader's attitude toward me

I suppose all the pro/con stuff should be in general discussion but I wanted to just get it all down here (and maybe some of it is easier to relate to since we all played the same leader/map)

Overall, love the GOTM, thanks for all who make it possible and I eagerly await Civ5 GOTM #1.

P.s. Why is everyone using Spoiler tags when this is the "After Action" post?

 

[bluexmas]

Well, I won. But it doesn't feel so good.
Data: won in 1940AD, score 2011.
This was my first GOTM. In Civ 4 I usually played on Prince and had tough but enjoyable games which I rarely won. In this game, I built 5 cities, conquered Germany, waited until Japan conquered every other country, then took Kyoto with a naval bombardment and a couple infantry I landed right next to it. It feels like this is a bug, even though I know it is technically a new rule (only needing to have the last original capital). In the few games I have played so far, I've gone big on culture every time, because the bonuses seem so helpful - especially the ones that help happiness, and then turn happiness into culture. This seems a little bit like wishing for more wishes, which the genie says you can't do.
All in all, I love the GOTM concept, and hope to be a regular contributor in the future. I also love the gameplay changes to Civ V. This was, however, the worst-feeling victory I've ever achieved, and I probably need to go cleanse my palate of its nasty taste.

 

[[AR]Nestor]

This is my first GOTM, and I am very upset that I ended up cheating. I Reloaded 10-15 turns late in the game after a crash. Did not find any auto saves, and after finishing the game saw that we should contact someone about reloading from an auto save after a crash. Who should I have contacted? Send a PM to AlanH? I am still attaching the save since this is a training series.

toughest part:

Spoiler :

Persia's remnant immortals killed quite a few of my knights in the late battles.

My first game.

End screen was dissapointed and there was no replay, or do I miss somethign?

I feel the same way, biggest let down to CIV V. When I win is about the only time I DO want to see a cinematic! I miss the graphs and stats!

 

[SixNations]

First time posting, first time playing a GOTM and first game I have completed on Civ5.

Won in 1410AD (Turn 201). (Not sure where my score is in Civ5. EDIT: not in the game, but in the HoF from MainMenu/Other) 2680

For me, it was fun doing something that other people were doing. As far as a strategy goes, it was pretty simple, beeline to Iron Working to find out where the nodes were and start making Our Imperial Legionaires. For the rest of the tech tree, AH and calendar were the only things that really were specifics.
As far as game play goes: Bismark fell over surprisingly easily and nice and early, just after settling my second city. Then I sort of lost my way. I had a hard time moving past the CS's and getting to the Japanese, and even when I did, I stalled, again expecting them to be tougher. Following the first round battle where I took two of their cities, they offered me a sweet deal including Satuma, which was on the far side of the world. Nice, Annex it, take the unhappiness hit and start buying Legions. The rest was over pretty quick.

Where I could do better:
Lost my aggression with Japan, could have knocked them out quite a lot earlier.
Had my Cap and 2nd city making wonders.... why? (I suppose I just like building things....)
Could have been quicker taking the social policies.


A couple of things I am not sure about:
How to create a reply file.
The rules about saving (so I didn't), but panicked at one point when my pc had a couple of mins of Civ5 not responding.

Cheers
6/

EDIT: (Thanks Thrallia) Added my replay save.

 

[Thrallia]

A couple of things I am not sure about:
How to create a reply file.
The rules about saving (so I didn't), but panicked at one point when my pc had a couple of mins of Civ5 not responding.

Cheers
6/

Previous versions of Civilization created a replay file on their own, I do not know yet if Civ 5 does so as well. If it does, it will be found in a folder called Replays)or something similar) just as saved games are found in the Saved Games folder.

As for saving the game, we do not have any rules regarding it or regarding saving, then loading that save and continuing your game.

Our rule, stated another way, is that you can't save the game, play farther, then load from your previous save, and play those turns again. So...you can save and load the save to your heart's content, as long as you don't replay any turns that you've played through before.

 

[MrWashington]

Fun game, I look forward to future GOTMs

Summary of my game:

Spoiler :

I settled in place and grew my city normally.
I allied with the neighboring city-state and built two more cities to the north.
Immediately when I discovered iron working, I built two Legions and other supporting units.
I positioned my army on Germany's border before I declared war.
Bismark asked me about my intentions with that army.
I told him that I was going to invade.
He thanked me for my honesty.

I quickly conquered Germany and sent my army east to search for new civilizations.
I initially did not find any until a Chinese scout wandered along.
I discovered the small isthmus to the rest of the continent.
I embarked my army and landed next to the Japanese city of Kyoto.
I launched my surprise invasion and overwhelmed the Japanese forces.
I did the same to China.
With the help of the Great General Hernan Cortez, I besieged and conquered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Persia was ready for me.
When my Legions pushed into their borders, I was flooded by Persian immortals.
Siege equipment won that battle, the Persians could not stand up to cannon fire.
Victory!

 

[AlanH]

Previous versions of Civilization created a replay file on their own, I do not know yet if Civ 5 does so as well. If it does, it will be found in a folder called Replays)or something similar) just as saved games are found in the Saved Games folder.

On my system there is a folder at:

C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Replays\

It's currently empty, but I'm sure it would contain replay files if I completed any games. The most useful file for our purposes is the .Civ5Save for the end of your game. Replay files contain a subset of the full game data, and may be able to help us to decipher the game info. However, we do not expect to require Replay files once the submission system is fully operational.

End screen was dissapointed and there was no replay, or do I miss somethign?

In the Civ5 main menu, try the 'Other'->'Hall of Fame' option. I expect completed games can be replayed from that screen.

 

[Mutineer]

In the Civ5 main menu, try the 'Other'->'Hall of Fame' option. I expect completed games can be replayed from that screen.

Tryed, only data provided,like score. any clicking had no effect.

 

[mpm2342]

I'll post some screenshots and save file once I figure out how to capture all the info. I finished in the wee hours of the morn, so dashed off to bed before I was consigned to the couch

Spoiler :

A few notes from the game:
- 2 legions along with a great general can take a city at this level
- 2 Knights can do it by themselves
I could have finished sooner, but had a few knights and legions following the main attack force around the map. After Berlin, I went after Persia, Monty, China and then Japan. If I would have split the attack and gone after Japan with the second wave of troops, it would have ended sooner. Catapults are great, but I think I only got 3 attacks the whole game from them as they could not keep up with the knights. I also likely could have finished a bit sooner, but I was wiping all the cities out and completely eliminating the opponents instead of just taking their capitals.
Embarking is great. Shortcuts across the ocean and lake sped up the attacks.