TSG1 After Action Report

Although the GOTM sponsored (or borrowed, in the case of the HOF mod) mod might well include various useful features beyond security, as HOF and BUFFY did ...

dV

 

Had great fun with my first ever GOTM. Easy win like everybody said and could have been much quicker if I had realized how weak the opponents were nearer the start.

Now onto GOTM2

 

Are you still accepting TS1 games? Anyway, here's mine. Nothing special here, but I may as well post it. I still need to read the other after action reports.

Year 1140 AD
Score 2929

Comments

This was my first playthrough of this map.

Fun map. I loved the snaky Pangaea. Having Germany near the Romans was a nice touch.

No big problems with the no reload rules. I made lots of minor mistakes, but nothing disastrous.

I got a "Peace treaty with Darius I has ended" bug. I don't think this affected the gameplay though.

Here's what is looked liked in the end:

Spoiler :

General strategy

Spoiler :

I went for Legions and Ballista about as early as I could. I used two Legions, one Ballista, plus a few Horsemen (only 3 horses were used for conquest, the rest for scouting and barb hunting). Also Budapest gave me one Spearmen which I sloppily lost late in the game; it was my only casualty. I upgraded units as soon as I got the techs. Late in the game I beelined rifles, and managed to get the Riflemen into play shortly before the end (not that they were really needed).

I conquered the capitals in this order. Germany -> Persia -> Aztec -> China -> Japan. I started my conquest around turn 100 and finished on turn 174. I made peace with conquered opponents as soon as they were willing. I never bothered or needed to defend anything.

I settled 3 cities. My second city was settled to grab some Iron as there was none near Rome. My third city was settled to grab two luxuries, including Marble with the idea that I'd use this city to build wonders; I ended up building only one wonder (the Oracle) there however. I annexed captured cities whenever they started building an undesirable building and I had enough happiness.

I generally hammered buildings and bought military units, settlers, and workers. I used trading posts almost exclusively on non-resource tiles; some mines near Rome. I kept my first Great General with my troops and used the second for a Golden Age. I used my Great Scientist to bulb Rifling. No other Great People.

City states

Budapest: Friended by killing some nearby barbs, but then conquered for its iron
Venice: Allied for its food
Tyre: Conquered for Venice's mission
Warsaw: Friended by killing barbs
Singapore: It went permanent war, and was in the way, so I conquered it
Helsinki: Allied for its food
Genoa: Allied for its food
Almaty: Allied to help against the Japanese

Research order

Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working -> Pottery -> Calendar -> Sailing -> Animal Husbandry -> The Wheel -> Writing -> Mathematics -> Trapping -> Optics ->Masonry -> Construction -> Horseback Riding -> Currency -> Metal Casting -> Steel -> Civil Service -> Chivalry -> Engineering -> Physics -> Gunpowder -> Metallurgy -> Rifling -> Theology

Social Policy order

Honor -> Warrior Code -> Military Tradition -> Discipline -> Military Caste -> Professional Army -> Patronage

Build order in Rome

Worker -> Monument -> Barracks -> Heroic Epic -> Granary -> Armory -> Lighthouse -> Colloseum -> Library -> Market -> Workshop -> Temple -> Circus

Afterthoughts

Spoiler :

Earlier horseman should have been a faster path to conquest. Also I could have gone faster by not waiting for my melee and siege before attacking, and also by splitting my forces.

I neglected economic techs and buildings early in the game, not sure if this was the best strategy.

I probably could have done okay settling only 1 other city... on the other hand mass settling might have worked just as well. I may have done better by never annexing, not sure however.

I didn't bother much with citizen focus or specialist assignment. After building libraries I would generally lock in two scientist specialists, if I remembered to.

I did a bad job capturing workers early in the game, I could have saved a bunch of gold here.

 

Fast game done in one day.

750 AD Domination. Only japan had one city left. All others were total kills but messed up with Japan and persia since I could not find them in time. Fast teching game.

 

When will the results be published?

 

I'd be happy to post a replay file ... if you have something useful you can do with it (So ... is it useful to you?)

dV

 

Ok, I'll send the replay up later tonight. Any chance you have found a way to view them yet?

When you say base score, do you mean the score seen in the diplomacy window? And by final score, do you mean the one the game shows you when it ranks your performance from Quayle to Augustus, or the one in the HOF (which differ by a couple percent). Just trying to get this terminology locked down.

dV

 

I finished this game yesterday (Central Time... too bad I'm on Eastern Time?!)

I won in 1550AD, with Japan the only remaining Civ with cities at the end. For a 'random' map, it sure as hell felt like a traditional GOTM-style map, what with the double-choke-point.

Early on I crushed Budapest, then Germany, then it was a slow slog to find anyone else to kill. I marched through City States before hitting Monty, Darius, Monty again, China, and finally Japan. Biggest hold-up was losing my 'army' of Archers/Legions trying to take down Tyre. 10-15 turns lost right there waiting for reinforcements to continue the march. By endgame, my Knights and LSwords had higher strength than the cities they were attacking.

Combat sure has a different feel. I like this: no more SODs mean that, with an army of 6-8 units, you can take down a city if properly used. Combat feels more like Advance Wars and in particular (for the real oldies) Battle Isle now.

I don't like the non-combat stacking rules. Maybe allow the following:
- Allow as many non-coms stacked on a tile as you like.
- Only allow 1 worker to be doing something on that tile.

Also a-la Advance Wars etc., how about allowing injured units of the same type to merge into one healthier unit?

Not impressed with load times either and admittedly whilst my CPU is actually below minimum spec, I shouldn't be experiencing load times of 3-4 minutes on a small map. Or any size map for that matter.

I've attached both final save and replay, even though they won't count.

 

The one thing that stands out the most is that the AI and CSes built very few if any roads. Not sure if this is because of the level or just a preference. You could say that it slows down an aggressor but it also messes up a defensive attempt.

 

Well, this is the first Civ V game that I have finished which was not on a duel-sized map.
It turned into a very rough and ready domination rampage, if rampage is the word for something that dragged on as slowly as this!
If I had any thoughts of other victory types (and I did spend a long time considering a diplomatic victory) they all fell by the wayside as I found just how easy warfare is in Civ V - on warlord level, and possibly higher levels by all accounts.
I took out Germany first, then Japan. These with legions and archers.
Disposed of Montezuma, having interrupted a war with Darius to do so. I then resumed hostilities and finished off Darius. By this stage I had some muskets but basically knights and longswords.
Since China was the only civ left alive at this point and I was such a long way from being able to build the UN, I upgraded as many as possible to the newly available rifles and finished them off too. Such mindless violence! Tsuch!

I am assuming that a lot has to do with the difficulty level. I scarcely had to deal with any economic or unhappiness problems, and the AI military was a complete pushover. By the end I had about 25 land units - ranging from longswords to rifles - and this was way more than enough to take out anything. Also, I had got a comfortable tech lead that allowed me to fight with rifles against archers and the like.

But it all looked beautiful

Final save: View attachment AgedOne TS1-T240.Civ5Save
Replay: View attachment Augustus Caesar_0240 AD-1650_1.Civ5Replay

PS. I realise that I'm too late. It was only a 'friendly' tho

 

Pretty normal domination victory. Stalled a little bit after Japan, mostly because I hadn't done enough exploring early on. Still getting used to new geography -- particularly the hex shape and the naval 'embarkment' not requiring transport units. Also reaaaaaalllly uncertain how to calculate cost-benefit of Annexing v. Puppeting v. Razing.

 

I know... too late to count, even though we aren't counting anyway...

Victory 760A.D., T-148, HOF Score 3241

Got my game 10 days after U.S. and had to do one practice game first... so after China, this was my second game. Onto the 2nd round. Maybe I can get that done in time.

I feel sorry for the complainers... this is a fun game

 

Here is my replay file ... it's a bit odd, the numbering. I reloaded a turn before victory save a few times to figure out the various scores, but this replay is only 2 minutes after my save, so how it is # 4 eludes me.

dV

 

Sorry this is a little late, too many RL issues lately. Hope you can still use them.

Attached are the final save and replay for the TS1 game.

Stayed pretty close to my plan, which was to stay on good terms with Militaristic city states (in my case, Budapest & Tyre). I bee-lined Iron Working and Math early, in order to build Legions and Ballistas, then more or less concentrated on Military techs and techs which improved the economy. Concentrated all social policies on completion Honor, and also took Patronage to help out with the City-State relations.

The Persian Capitol was the next to last to fall. It was a little difficult to take due to its position and the fact that Darius had built The Great Wall. The Chinese Capitol went down last, mainly due to the distance from the starting location.

I didn't find the combat to be too difficult in this game, maybe because this was a Warlord game.

This was an enjoyable game, and a nice start for the Civ 5 GOTM. Thanks for the game, and looking forward to TS2!.