TSG11 After Action Report

[Temron]

I have been lurking for years and thought I would give this a shot. Game was a lot of fun. I could have done this faster but a few errors got in the way. Missed a couple of RA slingshots. Decided to keep up with military tech since the AI is so likely to DOW now which I may not have needed to do. Accidentally settled my last GA instead of using it for a GA . All told I had a great time. Thanks for the game.

edit: Just wanted to let everyone know how I managed both Monty and Alex to keep them off my back. I had 3 wars with Monty and none with Alex which seems to be unique. At every opportunity I sold luxuries and resources to both of them keeping them perpetually broke through the beginning of the game. I sacrificed the ability to sign RAs with them but I figured that the likelihood of them DOWing was so high that they would get canceled anyway. I have nothing to quantify it but I think Alex's lack of aggression was due to being broke. He was at neutral disposition throughout the game with a stronger army than me however he never DOWed.

 

[Farrapo]

RAs are key to getting good results no matter what victory type you seek, but really important in cultural to get to certain wonders early. I decided to see if I could get a win without a single RA. I barely managed to do so ... noticed that Egypt also had 5 SP tracks completed at the end so he must have been close, plus the Ottomans had over 2200 VPs and were a major powerhouse.

I had two odd game glitches, one at t147 and one at t196. Both times I entered a zoom command to see the map details better and I lost my cursor. I had to use ESC to get to the menu an save, then restart. The second time I had to repeat about three moves (identically) which annoyed me.

Spoiler :

Perhaps it was just the rough terrain, but I thought the AI played a bit better in land battles. When attacking an AI city it seemed they used to disperse their ranged fire onto multiple units, but now concentrated on the weakest and/or most embedded (hardest to withdraw) unit. That made it more challenging, which is good.

I took all but one of the Aztec cities and a couple that Greece had established on my continent, then stayed at war with Greece for ages. He launched one major attack across the sea, which I defeated, then nobody ever came across again. I spent a lot of gold keeping units upgraded in case of a late attack, but one never came.

I only built one additional city to the NE on the coast, but had a good number of puppets (none annexed). Despite building every production enhancing building and wonder it still took me 11 turns at the end to build the Utopia in Mecca. I was definitely not optimal in the order of my research nor in the development of great people. Will be interested to see other non-RA results.

 

[xerex]

But this is my second attempt, so it doesn't count

I conquered Monte, kept a decent military and made sure that my economy was strong. I would have won Diplo if anybody had built the UN.
Oh, it's fun to bribe the other civs into going to war. First time I tried that

 

[Tycalt]

My first win since GOTM 1 !! I played a few of them but never managed to win, so am very glad I made it this time.

HOF 1328 after 357 turns. (Not a fast victory but I am happy

I found El Dorado straight away and used the 500 gold to get a second settler immediately. Monty was a pain the whole game but I managed to hold him off although we see-sawed one city in particular back and forth. Didn't have to contend with anyone else DOWing until 2 turns from the end when it no longer mattered. City State bonuses came in very nicely and they were also my key to holding Monty back. Alex was also nice to me as he kept joining in my war against Monty. Very fun game.

 

[leif erikson]

My first win since GOTM 1 !! I played a few of them but never managed to win, so am very glad I made it this time.

Congrats on your first win.

This was not an easy map to gain that win either.
Perhaps you could tell us a bit more on how you managed it?

 

[Tabarnak]

City State bonuses came in very nicely and they were also my key to holding Monty back. Alex was also nice to me as he kept joining in my war against Monty.

Yep, cs south of land(don't remember the name) and Alex also helped me. In fact Alex was about to conquer every city of Monty when i won. He had only 1 city left at the end.

 

[Tycalt]

Congrats on your first win.

This was not an easy map to gain that win either.
Perhaps you could tell us a bit more on how you managed it?

Let's see... Founded only 3 cities and puppeted three that Monty put too close for my liking. This was only due to him constantly DOWing otherwise I would not have DOWed against him.

Was constantly trading with other civ's for gold, as I had a ton of luxury resources, especially after I built the special Arabian building (forget the name now). Traded much more heavily in this game and spent a lot of time on it. I am sure that had a lot to do with my success as I'd rather ignored it in previous games.

Concentrating on getting any wonders that gave good Cultural bonuses was also a focus (starting with Stonehenge).

I rather ignored my military until Monty started being a pain but then built it up just enough to keep him back. Recognizing what is enough military is hard and I think I found just the right balance.

err... thats all that comes to mind right now

 

[Denbo]

Won on turn 317. Could have shaved off quite a few turns if I had used money from selling luxuries to rush buy museums to get hermitage faster. Used El Dorado to immediately buy a settler, and made another settler soon after. Stuck with 3 cities for the entire game, and only puppeted Cape Town. By the end I had 5 great artists settled at Mecca. Was basically at constant war with Monty, but held him off with 3 camel archers for most of the game until mech infantry. I just pretty much used the AIs as trading partners and ignored everything else they did. Never signed any RAs. Took tradition, liberty, freedom, piety, patronism. Should have went for landed elite earlier to grow taller faster. My 3 cities had pop of 27, 21, and 21.

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome to CivFanatics and GoTM.

Won on turn 317.

Congrats on your win.

 

[Aaronius]

Won on turn 317.

Never signed any RAs.

This is very impressive considering no RAs. Very interesting to me. So I guess you built all of your national wonders with three cities? What cultural wonders did you manage to build?

 

[Attaturk]

OCC style.
Got Eldorado => cultural ally
3sp into Tradition (+2 food +15 growth)
3sp ino Liberty (Merit. GE settled on wheat up north.


missed GL, Oracle, Himjei Castle.

Self researched Education, GE into PT, bult Astro

Met the rest of the CIV.

3sp into Patronage (upto research bonus)

3sp into Freedom (cheaper policies)

Then 3sp into piety

Allied most of the CS on the map.
Egypt and Alex hated me.
Monty kept fighting hopeless wars against me.

Fended off Monty initially with Chariot, warrior and pike.

In the end I was getting around 500 cult per turn. 4 turns per SP.

I am curious, how some of the guys here were able to fill all 5 trees at turn 240? Can you shared your SP path?

 

[MrWhite]

This game was a difficult one, thanks for the challenging map!!

After seeing no better space to settle, I moved my settler to the cotton surrounded by the river and founded Mecca there. It was a very nice place and I eventually got a great production... but during my game I constantly lacked gold although I had enough resources to trade.
Although there were a lot of ruins to discover, none of them gave me culture which was a bit of a setback. On the other hand I did find the 500 gold bonus before the aztecs. I decided to use it to make an ally out of florence. Then I could save some more gold for a library and build National College before the second city.

By turn 50 I was very happy with the game, having the NC, a second city (on the north coast) and some more things I wanted, but found I was on an island alone with the Aztecs, without iron and my military was 2 warriors and a scout. I wanted to go overseas, but my two warriors were eaten by barb boats and then Montezuma declared on me... about 5 turns before the first research agreement was finished!
To make matters worse, I missed on the Oracle by 4 turns!!
So I found that this was not going to be a fast finish and almost decided to start over.

But I just went along with it: made peace with Monty when he was getting close with 6 or 7 of his UU warriors (cost me a lot of gold, but that was still better then the capitol!). Meanwhile I had also bought a trireme which found the Greeks. But there was more to find... Unfortunately science was not going as fast as I wanted and it was very late that I could start sailing the oceans. By that time someone else circumvated the globe without even finding me! I found that I was luckily keeping up with science, but because I was limited to my 2 cities, I was lacking everything else. I sold resources, allied all culture city states, started with research agreements and was able to finish by turn 324.

In the meantime none of the three research agreements I made with the Aztecs matured: each time he declared on me! He even declared a fourth time when I didn't even botter anymore to sign a RA with him... The second time I allied a military city state and build some units but was not able to capture anything. The third war gave me 2 cities and the fourth gave me his capital. Peace was signed 10 turns before the end of the game because I didn't want to spend the time capturing his cities. He also game me the cities I could capture in that time.
Another challenge was allying the city states. France was definately going for a culture win keeping up with me until we each had about 15 policies, then he slowed down. Probably because of the wars on the big continent. They were the reason I was able to win: all money was invested in various wars. When not at war especially Egypt kept buying away city states. He was going for the diplomatic win and had some good cards!! Luckily he bought city states where he could and not just mine so I could keep the culture, eventually.

Oh, and strangely enough, no one was conquered. But Almaty was doing a good job in the end taking Roman cities. He was 'a bit' backwards, but other players didn't bother going for his lands. I believe they would all have been able to, but too busy with each other.

I liked the game because I had to change my plans to match the challenges in the map. Unfortunately I was unlucky in some places, but all in all it went well and I managed to win.

 

[ferven]

Not very good, but I am not sure what I did wrong.
1 city (capital, 21 population at the end)
Science: Astronomy: t 125, Acoustic: t166, archaeology: t 189, Telegraph: 267
Wonders, SH, GL, S. Chapel, Cristo R. Lost Oracle and Louvre.

On the other hand Egypt was friendly for a while before he noticed that I was going also for a cultural victory

 

[Tabarnak]

Reading games with no RAs makes me feel that at emperor level it's look like a good and balanced challenge. I throwed almost 1000 gold to garbage because of bad RA timing. I realized that playing with getting techs from RAs is not fun at all and unintuitive, and i'm also very bad at it.

I think i will follow some of you guys and play games with no RAs for next GOTMs. It feels much more enjoyable and challenging, and more appropriated from what i learned from months of playing(read multiplayer).

I really think devs should find another way of research pacts for next expansion(i repeat and i will repeat it again...)

A creation of a league of games played with no RAs can also be very interesting.

Congrats to all these players.

 

[Denbo]

This is very impressive considering no RAs. Very interesting to me. So I guess you built all of your national wonders with three cities? What cultural wonders did you manage to build?

Wonders on Mecca were cristo redentor, sistine chapel, stonehenge, louvre, and GL. For some reason, nobody built GL late into the game and I was extremely lucky with that. All National Wonders were in Mecca, except for Heroic Epic and Ironworks (Which was in Medina). Medina and Damascus had Porcelain Tower and Machu Pichu, respectively. Wanted to make sure those two cities had one wonder to make use of constitution.

To be honest, I think I could have done much, much better. So many turns wasted on wonders that I missed, and the order of social policies could have been thought out better. Also, I totally forgot about allying cultural city states until mid-game, when I met the rest of the world and traded all of my lux and strategic resources for cash.

 

[Monthar]

After losing my capital to Alex and giving up on the first play through, I played it again. On the 2nd play through I did manage a cultural victory on turn 366. Ramesses would have won a Diplomatic victory 4 turns before I could complete the Utopia Project with 10 votes to my 8 votes.

So I switched my other 2 cities to producing gold and gold focus to max out my income. Then I took the 2 GE's I was saving or for the Sydney Opera House and started a GA. This shaved off 2 turns on the build time and kicked my income up enough, with selling all my strategic resources, to take one of his CS and putting us into a deadlocked 9 votes each.

Then Ramesses took Stockholm from me. I had to sell some of my GPT for cash, so I could re-ally with Stockholm. The next turn, Ramesses took Stockholm again, so I sold another 64 GPT to the Ottomans for over 1000 cash, re-allied with Stockholm again. Since I couldn't keep this up with Ramesses sitting on a massive fortune and over 500 GPT income, I denounced him then declared war to ensure we'd stay deadlocked at 9 votes each for the first election.

By this point there was only 4 turns left until the vote and 6 turns left on the Utopia Project. My war to block Ramesses did the trick as we stayed deadlocked at 9 votes each when the election came up. Then 2 turns later I completed the Utopia Project for the win.

This map has way too many cotton tiles near the start. So much so, that I had enough to sell without the bazaar doubling them. Next time Arabia comes up, please ensure it's not a cultural challenge and we don't have an such an excess of a single luxury near the starting location. This way we can really take advantage of both the bazaar and the trade route bonus.

 

[Aaronius]

Wonders on Mecca were cristo redentor, sistine chapel, stonehenge, louvre, and GL. For some reason, nobody built GL late into the game and I was extremely lucky with that. All National Wonders were in Mecca, except for Heroic Epic and Ironworks (Which was in Medina). Medina and Damascus had Porcelain Tower and Machu Pichu, respectively. Wanted to make sure those two cities had one wonder to make use of constitution.

To be honest, I think I could have done much, much better. So many turns wasted on wonders that I missed, and the order of social policies could have been thought out better. Also, I totally forgot about allying cultural city states until mid-game, when I met the rest of the world and traded all of my lux and strategic resources for cash.

Thanks for the info. I personally like going for culture victories but I seldom build as many as three cities to do it. I'll only build a second city if the first one is not ideally situated and there is something amazing nearby. I find your strategy inspiring and I'm going to try it somewhere soon.

I also think its interesting that you and some others placed your capital on a coast. What was your decision process on that one?

 

[Denbo]

I also think its interesting that you and some others placed your capital on a coast. What was your decision process on that one?

Only my second city, Medina, was on the coast. It was two hexes south west of the fish to the north. I initially put it there to get El Dorado, but also make sure that I had at least 1 city on the coast in case I was all alone on an island with Monty, which it turns out we were.

 

[tommynt]

I am curious, how some of the guys here were able to fill all 5 trees at turn 240? Can you shared your SP path?

I usually go
1 trad
3 lib
1 trad (wonder)
(patro till Astro 1-2)
3 Freedom
1-2 Trad (get museum/opera with it)
2 freed/Patr dependent on how many CS
fill Patronage
fill rest

But sp path isnt deciding, what matters is getting Astro fast to get trading partners and opening freedom tree (filling 3 into fast REALLY matters), and then getting to Archealogy to get this 100% cult thing. After the RA for these techs are done u might make lill Pause of RA agreeemntes and buy some key buildings (like opera or forge) and then start a new round of RA to get next round of expensive techs to factory and christo.

I usually GE rush Henge and build GL (allways for civil service) - oracle d be best the turn u get astro - but its a luck thing and if i m slow I just skip

 

[tommynt]

I dont see why you would get more then 1 city, what matters are the multipliers, which u can get only fully in 1 city, however - puppeting cant hurt (dont kill potential trading partners ...)
Also I truly wonder how some people can have problems fighting the ai - ai suckz so badly .... really - 2 units is more then enough to kill 10 of ai ones