TSG13 After Action Report
- Thread starter leif erikson
- Start date
Aaronius
Neanderthal
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2007
- Messages
- 230
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-06
Reference number: 24350
Your name: Aaronius
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1890AD
Turns played: 315
Base score: 2171
Final score: 3446
Time played: 17:05:00
Please ignore the time played. I leave the game running while I do other things. I posted my first 89 turns in the game in progress thread so I'll put my remaining turns here.
Things I loved about this game: Legalism Abuse with Siam. Got my Wats on turn 89, which seems good compared to some other players who tried it. Of course I didn't go for any wonders or NC beforehand. This strategy made me micromanage like never before. The midgame was painful b/c even tho I had Wats and beakers and four cities, I was dead last in population with four little cities that wouldn't grow, didn't make money, and weren't happy. Thank god for all those lux nearby. It took a long time to get those cities growing AND happy AND wealthy. Ironically, even tho I felt my cities lagging in this game, I would keep looking up and notice it was still sometime around the birth of christ, and I would realize how far ahead I was on techs!!!
Things I liked about the game: playing with Siam, relatively peaceful neighbors, no Alexander, Tokugawa stuck on an island, tons of spice to trade.
Things I didn't like about the game: these GOTM lately seem to be asking us to use a particular civ to achieve the hardest difficulty condition, or at least not the easiest. To me Siam is an ideal culture victory civ, one reason I love them (almost as much as Ghandi). Also, I think several of the AI civs were broken. Yes Harun was rich, but the money that the AIs had made no sense turn to turn, -250g one turn, +300g the next with 25gpt. It made no sense and I had to check diplo every turn to see who had what b/c it was utterly unpredictable and detached from reality.
Other Thoughts: The story of my early game was one of deep and abiding peace. I had RAs going with pretty much everyone almost thru the renaissance, which I financed thru lux sales. Only one CS ally until near the end. China ended up being the fool willing to DOW me first, but luckily for me I had decided to slow my space victory by taking the time to get to rifles. China attacked when I was three turns from riflemen....Big mistake.
That changed my game in a major way, b/c Rome and America DOWed me soon after, and it militarized me for the rest of the game. I mean if you have tech advantage why not use it, expecially since I had Japan kicking butt somewhere in a "far away land" and Egypt looking very menacing near my new chinese puppets.
I took China and Egypt then went back to peace. That could have been all the fighting but Japan orchestrated the most elegant sneak attack I've ever experienced. Every civ in the game except my friend Ghandi DOWed me simultaneously with Tokugawa declaring last and revealing his "master plan". Fortunately for me my tech advantage continued with artillery, then mech infantry, then rocket artillery which dovetails so nicely with a science strategy.
The only civ I didn't end up at least taking the capital was Washington. he was just too far out of the way. All those DOWs cost me about half a dozen unfinished RAs, which dramatically slowed my victory. Can't blame the AI for trying.
I also decided to use my GS as soon as I got them in most cases. I don't like keeping them around with their unit cost per turn. I wonder if someone more experienced is certain that this is bad strategy, since of course later techs are more expensive, and too much tech advantage makes RAs more expensive. One advantage I think of using GS early is you get to the techs that allow you to win wars with fewer units. I was not only able to defend with four land units, but take China and Egypt. I added a fifth and a sixth land unit later, and eventually built a four boat navy, but the critical victories all took place with three rifles (later infantry) and one artillery piece (later rocket artillery). If I had been stuck with longswords, I never would have survived the first attack by china and rome b/c they came with so many crossbows trebuchets and musketmen I would at least have lost my two eastern cities. One artillery makes all the difference tho.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game and am proud to have a score that is similar to some of the decent players.
Date submitted: 2011-06-06
Reference number: 24350
Your name: Aaronius
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1890AD
Turns played: 315
Base score: 2171
Final score: 3446
Time played: 17:05:00
Please ignore the time played. I leave the game running while I do other things. I posted my first 89 turns in the game in progress thread so I'll put my remaining turns here.
Spoiler :
Things I loved about this game: Legalism Abuse with Siam. Got my Wats on turn 89, which seems good compared to some other players who tried it. Of course I didn't go for any wonders or NC beforehand. This strategy made me micromanage like never before. The midgame was painful b/c even tho I had Wats and beakers and four cities, I was dead last in population with four little cities that wouldn't grow, didn't make money, and weren't happy. Thank god for all those lux nearby. It took a long time to get those cities growing AND happy AND wealthy. Ironically, even tho I felt my cities lagging in this game, I would keep looking up and notice it was still sometime around the birth of christ, and I would realize how far ahead I was on techs!!!
Things I liked about the game: playing with Siam, relatively peaceful neighbors, no Alexander, Tokugawa stuck on an island, tons of spice to trade.
Things I didn't like about the game: these GOTM lately seem to be asking us to use a particular civ to achieve the hardest difficulty condition, or at least not the easiest. To me Siam is an ideal culture victory civ, one reason I love them (almost as much as Ghandi). Also, I think several of the AI civs were broken. Yes Harun was rich, but the money that the AIs had made no sense turn to turn, -250g one turn, +300g the next with 25gpt. It made no sense and I had to check diplo every turn to see who had what b/c it was utterly unpredictable and detached from reality.
Other Thoughts: The story of my early game was one of deep and abiding peace. I had RAs going with pretty much everyone almost thru the renaissance, which I financed thru lux sales. Only one CS ally until near the end. China ended up being the fool willing to DOW me first, but luckily for me I had decided to slow my space victory by taking the time to get to rifles. China attacked when I was three turns from riflemen....Big mistake.
That changed my game in a major way, b/c Rome and America DOWed me soon after, and it militarized me for the rest of the game. I mean if you have tech advantage why not use it, expecially since I had Japan kicking butt somewhere in a "far away land" and Egypt looking very menacing near my new chinese puppets.
I took China and Egypt then went back to peace. That could have been all the fighting but Japan orchestrated the most elegant sneak attack I've ever experienced. Every civ in the game except my friend Ghandi DOWed me simultaneously with Tokugawa declaring last and revealing his "master plan". Fortunately for me my tech advantage continued with artillery, then mech infantry, then rocket artillery which dovetails so nicely with a science strategy.
The only civ I didn't end up at least taking the capital was Washington. he was just too far out of the way. All those DOWs cost me about half a dozen unfinished RAs, which dramatically slowed my victory. Can't blame the AI for trying.
I also decided to use my GS as soon as I got them in most cases. I don't like keeping them around with their unit cost per turn. I wonder if someone more experienced is certain that this is bad strategy, since of course later techs are more expensive, and too much tech advantage makes RAs more expensive. One advantage I think of using GS early is you get to the techs that allow you to win wars with fewer units. I was not only able to defend with four land units, but take China and Egypt. I added a fifth and a sixth land unit later, and eventually built a four boat navy, but the critical victories all took place with three rifles (later infantry) and one artillery piece (later rocket artillery). If I had been stuck with longswords, I never would have survived the first attack by china and rome b/c they came with so many crossbows trebuchets and musketmen I would at least have lost my two eastern cities. One artillery makes all the difference tho.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game and am proud to have a score that is similar to some of the decent players.
I beelined writing and rushed NC and still got my Wats by turn 93.
Still, I somehow doubt that it was the right choice of strategy. I spent alot of resources getting the 3 extra cities and the expansion triggered three AI to war me around turn 105-120.
There was a coal to the north west of the capital near the cultural city-states which I was able to settle in the end-game for coal access. Was this land occupied for you?
Anyhow, I guess my game was fullblown world war from turn 100 so maybe that slowed AI expansion.
America had settled Chicago up there. Had I known Ragusa would take so long to hook up the coal, I would have settled a city on top of some coal SOMEwhere, but each turn I kept thinking "Ragusa has to hook it up now, it's been forever". I mean, they'd already MINED the coal and everything!
Greetings everyone, this is my 1st post here!
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-08
Reference number: 24357
Your name: Side89
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1977AD
Turns played: 397
Base score: 959
Final score: 1213
Time played: 3:59:00
I settled my Capital 1 tile NW so i could easily get to the pearls. I started off going for the NC start and going down the Liberty path, choosing Citizenship and Meritocracy, using the GE to rush the Great Library. I then settled 3 more cities right after my NC was complete - 1 city went West to grab Iron and to soak up the spices, another city went directly west to grab another gem and more spices, and my final city went NW of the capital to grab the marble and whales.
I then go tradition and decide to try the "Legalism wat trick" that I've read about, so i start building monuments / temples in all of my cities. All the while I am selling tons of spices and the extra gem for gold to fund RA's and to ally with several city states (Venice and Seoul to start out with). I research Education but I am no where near finished with the monuments / temples, so I finish building them in time for the next social policy to come up and I grab Legalism. To my surprise though, I get 4 free Opera Houses! My RA's popped acoustics before I could get the temples down and grab Legalism! DOH!
So I go full on production and hard build wats in every city but at least I'm getting lots of culture. I think by this point I opened up Patronage and was on my way to Scholasticism.
Around this time, Washington DOW's me for the first and only time in the game and I easily repel him and we make a fair peace treaty. A little later, China declares war on me but It doesn't last too long, as Egypt and Arabia are monster Civs now and both DOW on China and start taking her cities. Egypt then declares war on Arabia, China is conquered and I now share a border with Egypt. It is around this time I research Artillery and build them like crazy. Somewhere in this mess a GE is born and i decide to rush the Brandenburg Gate and get a free GG. After I build 1 artillery Egypt and Arabia both DOW me at around the same turn and send lots of units in my direction but most are out dated. There are a ton of them and I get scared so I actually throw down a Citadel and it helps me a lot. A GG is born during my defending so I send him up to battle.
At this point, I am fighting Arabia for the tech lead - I keep switching from rank 1-2 on the demographics screen. I still maintain good trading relationships with Japan, India, America and Rome. Japan is my best buddy and I bribe him to declare war on Egypt and Arabia. He wants something ridiculously low like 20 g, horses, and open borders for each war so I agree in hopes he annoys Egypt and Arabia. To my surprise he gets a foot hold on the Egyptian mainland and takes an Egyptian city but he decides to RAZE it.
When I research Rocketry I build the Apollo program and upgrade many of my artillery to rockets. I see no sign of Egypt's troops as he is battling Arabia to his south, so I decide to invade and I Puppet Shanghai with little resistance. I see Beijing has only 1 population and is shifting back and forth every few turns, green yellow green yellow. Arabia has the tech lead now and builds Apollo but I have the Apollo program up and have the 1st 3 pieces already done (SS booster?) When I'm finished with the 4th piece Arabia has built 3 and is right on my tail. I sadly do not have access to coal and have no factories, thus no spaceship factories, so I make many people unemployed in my capital and my next biggest production city and pump out the last 2 pieces and hope that I beat Arabia to it. Arabia builds his 4th piece while I am finishing up my last so I take the Victory. All in all though it was a rather fun/interesting game for me.
Also, My PC decided to crash twice during this game, but I was auto-saving every turn so I re-loaded from there. I know that I'm not supposed to replay any turns but I hope this is ok.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-08
Reference number: 24357
Your name: Side89
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1977AD
Turns played: 397
Base score: 959
Final score: 1213
Time played: 3:59:00
I settled my Capital 1 tile NW so i could easily get to the pearls. I started off going for the NC start and going down the Liberty path, choosing Citizenship and Meritocracy, using the GE to rush the Great Library. I then settled 3 more cities right after my NC was complete - 1 city went West to grab Iron and to soak up the spices, another city went directly west to grab another gem and more spices, and my final city went NW of the capital to grab the marble and whales.
I then go tradition and decide to try the "Legalism wat trick" that I've read about, so i start building monuments / temples in all of my cities. All the while I am selling tons of spices and the extra gem for gold to fund RA's and to ally with several city states (Venice and Seoul to start out with). I research Education but I am no where near finished with the monuments / temples, so I finish building them in time for the next social policy to come up and I grab Legalism. To my surprise though, I get 4 free Opera Houses! My RA's popped acoustics before I could get the temples down and grab Legalism! DOH!
So I go full on production and hard build wats in every city but at least I'm getting lots of culture. I think by this point I opened up Patronage and was on my way to Scholasticism.Around this time, Washington DOW's me for the first and only time in the game and I easily repel him and we make a fair peace treaty. A little later, China declares war on me but It doesn't last too long, as Egypt and Arabia are monster Civs now and both DOW on China and start taking her cities. Egypt then declares war on Arabia, China is conquered and I now share a border with Egypt. It is around this time I research Artillery and build them like crazy. Somewhere in this mess a GE is born and i decide to rush the Brandenburg Gate and get a free GG. After I build 1 artillery Egypt and Arabia both DOW me at around the same turn and send lots of units in my direction but most are out dated. There are a ton of them and I get scared so I actually throw down a Citadel and it helps me a lot. A GG is born during my defending so I send him up to battle.
At this point, I am fighting Arabia for the tech lead - I keep switching from rank 1-2 on the demographics screen. I still maintain good trading relationships with Japan, India, America and Rome. Japan is my best buddy and I bribe him to declare war on Egypt and Arabia. He wants something ridiculously low like 20 g, horses, and open borders for each war so I agree in hopes he annoys Egypt and Arabia. To my surprise he gets a foot hold on the Egyptian mainland and takes an Egyptian city but he decides to RAZE it.
When I research Rocketry I build the Apollo program and upgrade many of my artillery to rockets. I see no sign of Egypt's troops as he is battling Arabia to his south, so I decide to invade and I Puppet Shanghai with little resistance. I see Beijing has only 1 population and is shifting back and forth every few turns, green yellow green yellow. Arabia has the tech lead now and builds Apollo but I have the Apollo program up and have the 1st 3 pieces already done (SS booster?) When I'm finished with the 4th piece Arabia has built 3 and is right on my tail. I sadly do not have access to coal and have no factories, thus no spaceship factories, so I make many people unemployed in my capital and my next biggest production city and pump out the last 2 pieces and hope that I beat Arabia to it. Arabia builds his 4th piece while I am finishing up my last so I take the Victory. All in all though it was a rather fun/interesting game for me.
Also, My PC decided to crash twice during this game, but I was auto-saving every turn so I re-loaded from there. I know that I'm not supposed to replay any turns but I hope this is ok.
Science victory!
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24363
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1735AD
Turns played: 257
Base score: 687
Final score: 1347
Time played: 4:36:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0257 AD-1735.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Tabarnak_C501301.Civ5Save
You can read evolution of the game here :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10568585&postcount=25
and here :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10570556&postcount=34
After turn 210 i went for the coal and i bought myself a factory in cap and hard built one in another city. Made peace with Washington. I got nanotech at tun 239 but still 2 last big parts to build and not yet finished with a cluster. I bought a spaceship factory to build last 2 parts in cap. I made some maths and i couldnt save a few turns with another city because i didd't have enough money to buy a solar plant(planted on marble) and/or a spaceship factory. It was smelling war around too.
Civs around were pretty nervous. I didn't have a big army, too busy at building parts. Finally got at war with Harun and Egypt some turns later. Wonderful how much damage you can do with only 1 cannon against 6 units... Just hurt most units as possible without killing them, they will retreat to heal.
Do they burn tiles sometime? Only barbs have masterized this so far or what? Wars were pretty easy sincerely.
Except this lame situation, it was a pretty fun game. For a rusted guy(RA blocking, industrial-modern eras play turns), it wasn't that bad after all.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24363
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1735AD
Turns played: 257
Base score: 687
Final score: 1347
Time played: 4:36:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0257 AD-1735.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Tabarnak_C501301.Civ5Save
You can read evolution of the game here :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10568585&postcount=25
and here :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10570556&postcount=34
After turn 210 i went for the coal and i bought myself a factory in cap and hard built one in another city. Made peace with Washington. I got nanotech at tun 239 but still 2 last big parts to build and not yet finished with a cluster. I bought a spaceship factory to build last 2 parts in cap. I made some maths and i couldnt save a few turns with another city because i didd't have enough money to buy a solar plant(planted on marble) and/or a spaceship factory. It was smelling war around too.
Civs around were pretty nervous. I didn't have a big army, too busy at building parts. Finally got at war with Harun and Egypt some turns later. Wonderful how much damage you can do with only 1 cannon against 6 units... Just hurt most units as possible without killing them, they will retreat to heal.
Do they burn tiles sometime? Only barbs have masterized this so far or what? Wars were pretty easy sincerely.
Except this lame situation, it was a pretty fun game. For a rusted guy(RA blocking, industrial-modern eras play turns), it wasn't that bad after all.
MacPlayerJay
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2011
- Messages
- 6
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24364
Your name: MacPlayerJay
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1872AD
Turns played: 306
Base score: 969
Final score: 1588
Time played: 3:59:00
Submitted save: tsg13.Civ5Save
Renamed file: MacPlayerJay_C501301.Civ5Save
Hi this is my first GOTM because the MAC version finally got the last patch. This was my first game since the patch and all I really noticed was that the AI likes to declare war more often, but still cannot actually fight a war.
I tried the WAT legalism thingy and also tried to play very peacefully and actually only took one city (a city-state) late in the game. I signed numerous RA's only to see the AI declare war when in friendly status. The first was Ceasar around turn 50, after I had a publicly declared friendship with him. America, China and Harun also did this later in the game.
I think in hindsight I should have taken Roman, American and Chinese cities then puppeted them. My tech rate was a little slow for most of the game, but by the end I was over 700 per turn with help from city states.
Money and happiness were never really a problem, but the AI never seemed to have enough money. I usually play immortal and am used to the AI having much more money.
I was shooting for a sub-300 turn win, but forgot I also needed nanotech and was 1 GS short, so It took me another 9 turns to research and 8 turns to build. Whoops.\!
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24364
Your name: MacPlayerJay
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1872AD
Turns played: 306
Base score: 969
Final score: 1588
Time played: 3:59:00
Submitted save: tsg13.Civ5Save
Renamed file: MacPlayerJay_C501301.Civ5Save
Hi this is my first GOTM because the MAC version finally got the last patch. This was my first game since the patch and all I really noticed was that the AI likes to declare war more often, but still cannot actually fight a war.
I tried the WAT legalism thingy and also tried to play very peacefully and actually only took one city (a city-state) late in the game. I signed numerous RA's only to see the AI declare war when in friendly status. The first was Ceasar around turn 50, after I had a publicly declared friendship with him. America, China and Harun also did this later in the game.
I think in hindsight I should have taken Roman, American and Chinese cities then puppeted them. My tech rate was a little slow for most of the game, but by the end I was over 700 per turn with help from city states.
Money and happiness were never really a problem, but the AI never seemed to have enough money. I usually play immortal and am used to the AI having much more money.
I was shooting for a sub-300 turn win, but forgot I also needed nanotech and was 1 GS short, so It took me another 9 turns to research and 8 turns to build. Whoops.\!
Guess I was not the fastest in this one... 
glad I made it though after all the struggle I reported in the progress section.
Topline: wanted to try legalism abuse. started off well, founding 2 new cities fast. built 3rd settler but rome declared war and it took me so long to take his cap which I wanted as 4th city. Also I took a second settler from a CS so I was in perma war with 3 CSs. I didnt know bout that.
cold war like conditions with Washington and Wu stopped me from discovering rest of world. bad trading, hardly RAs, didnt know a lot of CSs.
fell far behind and thought I would never recover. techwise also 1 age behind all others.
built banks, markets etc. to boost economy. then allied with 4 CSs (florence, bucharest, venice and kuala lumpur). schoaticism boosted science. I got better on track but Japan was the only friendly Civ towards me.
in the late phase of the match where I first ever micromanaged I erazed Washington. tried to get to artillery asap, built 4 of them and one by one puppeted his cities. I built all available happines buildings and in the end directly had to sell cities that I won to Arabia who had lots of cash, bought off all CSs and aimed at cultural victory. Kept him at 9 points during elections by declaring war. Ramses erazed Wu and then attacked my spices city east of Sukothai. This was the closest battle I ever fought, army stats at one point being Ramses 40,000 vs. me 2,400, several times reinforcement troops arrived just on time to defeat his unit that could have taken the city. he had just 1 or 2 units that could actually take the city, rest was artillery. I was able with my 3 artilleries to fight him off. He even nuked the city which was nice because it brought my happiness from -10 to around 0 thus making my units more powerful and my spaceship production faster.
Ramses was always ahead in tech but was in war with Arabia and China and me. Must have slowed him down. When I won he was missing 2 parts of the spaceship.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24366
Your name: subber
Game date: 2009AD
Turns played: 429
Base score: 1132
Final score: 1331
Time played: 9:02:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0429 - 2009 n. Chr..Civ5Save
Renamed file: subber_C501301.Civ5Save
glad I made it though after all the struggle I reported in the progress section.
Topline: wanted to try legalism abuse. started off well, founding 2 new cities fast. built 3rd settler but rome declared war and it took me so long to take his cap which I wanted as 4th city. Also I took a second settler from a CS so I was in perma war with 3 CSs. I didnt know bout that.
cold war like conditions with Washington and Wu stopped me from discovering rest of world. bad trading, hardly RAs, didnt know a lot of CSs.
fell far behind and thought I would never recover. techwise also 1 age behind all others.
built banks, markets etc. to boost economy. then allied with 4 CSs (florence, bucharest, venice and kuala lumpur). schoaticism boosted science. I got better on track but Japan was the only friendly Civ towards me.
in the late phase of the match where I first ever micromanaged I erazed Washington. tried to get to artillery asap, built 4 of them and one by one puppeted his cities. I built all available happines buildings and in the end directly had to sell cities that I won to Arabia who had lots of cash, bought off all CSs and aimed at cultural victory. Kept him at 9 points during elections by declaring war. Ramses erazed Wu and then attacked my spices city east of Sukothai. This was the closest battle I ever fought, army stats at one point being Ramses 40,000 vs. me 2,400, several times reinforcement troops arrived just on time to defeat his unit that could have taken the city. he had just 1 or 2 units that could actually take the city, rest was artillery. I was able with my 3 artilleries to fight him off. He even nuked the city which was nice because it brought my happiness from -10 to around 0 thus making my units more powerful and my spaceship production faster.
Ramses was always ahead in tech but was in war with Arabia and China and me. Must have slowed him down. When I won he was missing 2 parts of the spaceship.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-09
Reference number: 24366
Your name: subber
Game date: 2009AD
Turns played: 429
Base score: 1132
Final score: 1331
Time played: 9:02:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0429 - 2009 n. Chr..Civ5Save
Renamed file: subber_C501301.Civ5Save
Welcome to Civ5 GoTM.
And thankfully, the Mac version is now patched up to windows. Nice to see you in the game. Congrats on your win.
He even nuked the city which was nice because it brought my happiness from -10 to around 0 thus making my units more powerful and my spaceship production faster.
Haha epic!
godotnut
Inverted Unicycle
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-10
Reference number: 24371
Your name: godotnut
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1850AD
Turns played: 295
Base score: 778
Final score: 1318
Time played: 13:54:00
Submitted save: finishRamkhamhaeng_0295 AD-1850.Civ5Save
Renamed file: godotnut_C501301.Civ5Save
Meh, not my best game. I used plentiful RAs (but not any serious blocking) and bulbed techs with all of my scientists this time to compare my results trying other approaches. Oddly, my result was almost exactly the same as an attempt with the same settings, except playing as the French and using very few RAs (and no blocking at all), while settling my first four or five scientists as academies.
Another difference in strats between these games is that with the French I went deep in rationalism pretty early and conquered several puppets for a larger empire but with fewer base cities. For this GOTM, instead, I went down the left half of the patronage tree before hitting rationalism and settled four cities early but didn't puppet any the entire game. Despite these differences, I finished only two turns difference between them, with the French edging Siam by a hair.
Conversations here would have led me to believe that I would have done better bulbing all of the scientists rather than settling the early ones and staying peaceful for more RAs. But that wasn't the case in my little comparison. Of course there are so many other variables that who knows, really, but I thought the comparison was interesting.
Date submitted: 2011-06-10
Reference number: 24371
Your name: godotnut
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1850AD
Turns played: 295
Base score: 778
Final score: 1318
Time played: 13:54:00
Submitted save: finishRamkhamhaeng_0295 AD-1850.Civ5Save
Renamed file: godotnut_C501301.Civ5Save
Meh, not my best game. I used plentiful RAs (but not any serious blocking) and bulbed techs with all of my scientists this time to compare my results trying other approaches. Oddly, my result was almost exactly the same as an attempt with the same settings, except playing as the French and using very few RAs (and no blocking at all), while settling my first four or five scientists as academies.
Another difference in strats between these games is that with the French I went deep in rationalism pretty early and conquered several puppets for a larger empire but with fewer base cities. For this GOTM, instead, I went down the left half of the patronage tree before hitting rationalism and settled four cities early but didn't puppet any the entire game. Despite these differences, I finished only two turns difference between them, with the French edging Siam by a hair.
Conversations here would have led me to believe that I would have done better bulbing all of the scientists rather than settling the early ones and staying peaceful for more RAs. But that wasn't the case in my little comparison. Of course there are so many other variables that who knows, really, but I thought the comparison was interesting.
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-10
Reference number: 24372
Your name: slugster
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1725AD
Turns played: 255
Base score: 1076
Final score: 2109
Time played: 15:36:00
I started by playing a few tests game to get a feel for the legalism trick, but didn't felt that it was a significant boost in a emperor level game. And as it seems everybody else would go for that route I thought (as Tabarnak) that it would be interesting to do something else to compare the results. So I choose to combine that with no RAs, which means that I would need to hard research a lot.
My initial strategy was to focus on culture and stay small. So NC first and then I settle my second city in the nice spice/river area to the east. The second city got a bit delayed because of two barbs blocking my way. I wanted to settle a third city, but was very indecisive. I wanted a spot with minimum 3 luxuries and water access, but it just didnt happen or the AI got to them first. Near turn 100 I finally decided for a spot on the other side of China, close to Egypt, where I could get a good city going with some Gold. But it was a little late and it never really caught up to my two first cities, which probably was the one decision that cost me the most. The other was being too slow on going on the offensive.
For SPs I went for Liberty first. I hoped for a culture ruin, but popped a tech (Pottery, very nice) and a +1 pop. And that was it. I somehow dodged a lot of ruins only to see the AI take them one turn before I could reach them. So instead I borrowed money from the AI to reach 250 gold at turn 18 and invest in Bucharest for +6 culture. It didnt last long since it was Hostile, but it did give me the worker SP and later (with another 250g) the free Great Person. Here I chose a Great Engineer to settle at my capital on a Cow for +4 production. I would have to build a lot of buildings and wonders, so those +4 helped a lot.
My SP path went to Patronage for the tech boost, and then to Freedom for the +50% great person growth. And finally I managed to get down the Rationalism tree to the 2 free techs. The boost from Patronage (and no gold spend on RAs) made it possible to ally with a lot of culture CSs, so all in all I got quite a few SPs. This combined with an early Hagia Sofia resulted in 10 GPs produced across my cities. 8 were scientist and 2 were engineers. One for a quick boost to my third city (which was a mistake, it came too late), and one to hurry Statue of Liberty for faster space part production (maybe a mistake as well, but it made it possible to focus on Research Lab at that point).
With no RAs I would focus on the science buildings and on boosting my population. The CS science bonus is nice (and vital in the mid-game), but in the end of the game, the bulk of my science will come from my own cities. So I prioritized early Aquaducts and also teched Fertilizer (though decided on this a little late). When I had teched Biology and Steam Power I used 3 GS to quickly get to Research Lab buildings (in a RA heavy game I would have used them to get to Apollo, but I needed the tech first). Along with the boost from SPs (both CS science and Specialist/Tradepost bonus) I had around 900 beakers. Not stellar, but enough to push at a decent speed.
I tried to stay peaceful, but signed no friendship deals. If just one AI decides to backstabs you it hurts like hell in the relationships with everybody else. So instead I kept a minimal force and waited for the first DOW. This game was strange though. All the AI were Friendly to me all the time (except a few Neutrals in the beginning) and then wham! some of the DOWed me. After the peace they were Friendly againg. I never saw Guarded or Hostile or anything else. So most of the wars were quite scary since I had no idea when or where it would be. And due to my silly city placement (on both sides of China) I had a fragmented empire and it took a looooong time to get units from one side to the other (I had to have Open Borders from China all the time).
To make matters worse Rome and Egypt DOWed me at the same time. But as others have noted, defending against the AI is quite easy. One ranged unit in the city and maybe a singly unit to mob up and you can defend against hordes. I did experience the AI pillage me once, but mostly they just dance around and cant decide what to. When Egypt DOWed me I was actually in a very vulnerable position with a GE only guarded by a warrior and Egypt had a horseman within range. So I instantly asked for peace and suprisingly he agreed if I gave him 300g. I decided that was worth saving my GE, so I said yes. But then the turn after he declared war again!!! I though the peace was 10 turn minumum???? Anyways, it still meant that I could settle the GE and avoid the loss, but I felt quite cheated.
I think i was in a war against either Rome, Egypt, Arabia or America for most of the game since turn 120 or so. All wars were started by the AI, which means that it is ok to attack back (no diplo hit) as long as you dont wipe them out. Normally I would have done that the first time, but with the double DOW from both Rome and Egypt I sent me on the defense instead. Later, when Rome DOWed me again (sigh) I decided to finally get some puppets and used 10-12 turns to build a small army of 2 cannons, 2 elephants and a LS (upgraded warrior). Luckily America decided to attack Rome as well and this meant that his units were cannonfodder while I positioned my cannons and took Rome and got Attrium(?) in the peace settlement. Those two cities gave me some more money, but not much science. It also happened quite late (turn 190ish). I think if I had focused more on military and used all the wars better and earlier I would have improved the end result. Hard to say.
All in all a very funny and different game. Oh, and as many others, I was also baffled by the non-coal from Ragusa. I ended up trading coal from Arabia around turn 220. At that point I had actually build a settler and was ready to settle besides the coal close to America/Rome.
Btw. the time spent is quite misleading since I often just leave the game and return after several hours. But I do use quite a few hours (I like to consider my options, so maybe its half of that time ..
Date submitted: 2011-06-10
Reference number: 24372
Your name: slugster
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1725AD
Turns played: 255
Base score: 1076
Final score: 2109
Time played: 15:36:00
I started by playing a few tests game to get a feel for the legalism trick, but didn't felt that it was a significant boost in a emperor level game. And as it seems everybody else would go for that route I thought (as Tabarnak) that it would be interesting to do something else to compare the results. So I choose to combine that with no RAs, which means that I would need to hard research a lot.
My initial strategy was to focus on culture and stay small. So NC first and then I settle my second city in the nice spice/river area to the east. The second city got a bit delayed because of two barbs blocking my way. I wanted to settle a third city, but was very indecisive. I wanted a spot with minimum 3 luxuries and water access, but it just didnt happen or the AI got to them first. Near turn 100 I finally decided for a spot on the other side of China, close to Egypt, where I could get a good city going with some Gold. But it was a little late and it never really caught up to my two first cities, which probably was the one decision that cost me the most. The other was being too slow on going on the offensive.
For SPs I went for Liberty first. I hoped for a culture ruin, but popped a tech (Pottery, very nice) and a +1 pop. And that was it. I somehow dodged a lot of ruins only to see the AI take them one turn before I could reach them. So instead I borrowed money from the AI to reach 250 gold at turn 18 and invest in Bucharest for +6 culture. It didnt last long since it was Hostile, but it did give me the worker SP and later (with another 250g) the free Great Person. Here I chose a Great Engineer to settle at my capital on a Cow for +4 production. I would have to build a lot of buildings and wonders, so those +4 helped a lot.
My SP path went to Patronage for the tech boost, and then to Freedom for the +50% great person growth. And finally I managed to get down the Rationalism tree to the 2 free techs. The boost from Patronage (and no gold spend on RAs) made it possible to ally with a lot of culture CSs, so all in all I got quite a few SPs. This combined with an early Hagia Sofia resulted in 10 GPs produced across my cities. 8 were scientist and 2 were engineers. One for a quick boost to my third city (which was a mistake, it came too late), and one to hurry Statue of Liberty for faster space part production (maybe a mistake as well, but it made it possible to focus on Research Lab at that point).
With no RAs I would focus on the science buildings and on boosting my population. The CS science bonus is nice (and vital in the mid-game), but in the end of the game, the bulk of my science will come from my own cities. So I prioritized early Aquaducts and also teched Fertilizer (though decided on this a little late). When I had teched Biology and Steam Power I used 3 GS to quickly get to Research Lab buildings (in a RA heavy game I would have used them to get to Apollo, but I needed the tech first). Along with the boost from SPs (both CS science and Specialist/Tradepost bonus) I had around 900 beakers. Not stellar, but enough to push at a decent speed.
I tried to stay peaceful, but signed no friendship deals. If just one AI decides to backstabs you it hurts like hell in the relationships with everybody else. So instead I kept a minimal force and waited for the first DOW. This game was strange though. All the AI were Friendly to me all the time (except a few Neutrals in the beginning) and then wham! some of the DOWed me. After the peace they were Friendly againg. I never saw Guarded or Hostile or anything else. So most of the wars were quite scary since I had no idea when or where it would be. And due to my silly city placement (on both sides of China) I had a fragmented empire and it took a looooong time to get units from one side to the other (I had to have Open Borders from China all the time).
To make matters worse Rome and Egypt DOWed me at the same time. But as others have noted, defending against the AI is quite easy. One ranged unit in the city and maybe a singly unit to mob up and you can defend against hordes. I did experience the AI pillage me once, but mostly they just dance around and cant decide what to. When Egypt DOWed me I was actually in a very vulnerable position with a GE only guarded by a warrior and Egypt had a horseman within range. So I instantly asked for peace and suprisingly he agreed if I gave him 300g. I decided that was worth saving my GE, so I said yes. But then the turn after he declared war again!!! I though the peace was 10 turn minumum???? Anyways, it still meant that I could settle the GE and avoid the loss, but I felt quite cheated.
I think i was in a war against either Rome, Egypt, Arabia or America for most of the game since turn 120 or so. All wars were started by the AI, which means that it is ok to attack back (no diplo hit) as long as you dont wipe them out. Normally I would have done that the first time, but with the double DOW from both Rome and Egypt I sent me on the defense instead. Later, when Rome DOWed me again (sigh) I decided to finally get some puppets and used 10-12 turns to build a small army of 2 cannons, 2 elephants and a LS (upgraded warrior). Luckily America decided to attack Rome as well and this meant that his units were cannonfodder while I positioned my cannons and took Rome and got Attrium(?) in the peace settlement. Those two cities gave me some more money, but not much science. It also happened quite late (turn 190ish). I think if I had focused more on military and used all the wars better and earlier I would have improved the end result. Hard to say.
All in all a very funny and different game. Oh, and as many others, I was also baffled by the non-coal from Ragusa. I ended up trading coal from Arabia around turn 220. At that point I had actually build a settler and was ready to settle besides the coal close to America/Rome.
Btw. the time spent is quite misleading since I often just leave the game and return after several hours. But I do use quite a few hours (I like to consider my options
, so maybe its half of that time ..Excellent game. With such restrictions, this is probably the best overall game played so far. AIs need to team up to actually have a little chance to do some damage to human players! Even that, like you said, they just ''dance'' around!
Your strategy make me think about how scholastisism can be really powerful when you can have access to a lot of CS soon enough. I bet you hard build universities, i probably would have better results if i just hard builded them and keep money for more RAs(didnt take the scho. route).
Again, well done.
Edit : What is unclear is the legalism trick. From games played so far, it's hard to tell which approach is the best. One thing is sure : the legalism trick doesnt seem to do a dominant effect. In fact it may cripple some other things along the way. Lack of rivers may partially explain this like MadDjinn and Airay already mentionned it.
It's a good trick, but not a massive overpowering ability. For starters, you really need 4 good cities to maximize it, but there really wasn't a great spot for a 4th (the two cities most people built were to the E for the Gems and Spices and on the Marble to the NE).
As several folks have pointed out, you also need decent production in at least the last two cities since you will need to crank out a Monument and a Temple pretty quickly. If the production isn't there, then you end up having to buy the Temple for 580g (which I had to do).
I feel that our position on this map really didn't lend itself very well to taking full advantage of Legalism for the free Wats. In a lot of ways, it felt like an "all-in" strat that was very susceptible to things going wrong (like an early AI war).
This strategy worked well because I had access to many cultural CSs early on (though most of them Hostile) and I also got two of them for "free" by clearing a barb camp - its really nice of them when they target the same camp
. For the wats I hardbuilded the one in my capital (with the settled GE I had a nice production, so I think it took 7 or 8 turns). My second city was not that developed so here I had saved up some money and simply purchased the wat. The third city arrived later and got a settled GE as well, but didnt have the pop to justify a purchase, so I just took 12 turns to build it. I got Education at around turn 100 (after a small detour to Metalworking for the GE and workshops - this was a builder strategy), so my Wats arrived a little later than with legalism, but not much. And my cities had a much bigger population and were ready to take advantage of them. When I have tried the legalism trick in test games (ok, on some quite different maps) I could get the Wats around turn 85, but I felt i hurt the pop growth and city development quite a lot. In this game my two starting cities ended at (I think) 29 and 28 pop. And my second city ended up being able to build the last spaceship parts in 5 turns.
killerloop
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2003
- Messages
- 168
turn 200 I give up,
Harun just surpassed me in Tech, has 9 CS already allied, has 228 gpt and still 5 Luxuries free to trade, he will definitely win a Diplomatic win.
Since turn 150 he has more than 160 gpt!
I was hoping to outtech him, but should have gone for him earlier.
I just payed 1000 gold to take an ally from Harun for coal, to get my factories, but he just bought them back, he has over 2000 in cash as well.
I was not doing bad, with no RA's, 4 Wats at turn 100, SciThe at ~150. Have 5 GS's already lined up + Oxford & SciRev still + ~3 GS's to come, an early 300+ win I would have expected, I have only have ~10 techs still to discover myself.
Till now 1 war with America, went out ok, everyone is friendly now, or neutral. Biggest challenge was happiness.
Next time better, BTW, 1st time I see such a monster development of a Civ on this level
Harun just surpassed me in Tech, has 9 CS already allied, has 228 gpt and still 5 Luxuries free to trade, he will definitely win a Diplomatic win.
Since turn 150 he has more than 160 gpt!
I was hoping to outtech him, but should have gone for him earlier.
I just payed 1000 gold to take an ally from Harun for coal, to get my factories, but he just bought them back, he has over 2000 in cash as well.
I was not doing bad, with no RA's, 4 Wats at turn 100, SciThe at ~150. Have 5 GS's already lined up + Oxford & SciRev still + ~3 GS's to come, an early 300+ win I would have expected, I have only have ~10 techs still to discover myself.
Till now 1 war with America, went out ok, everyone is friendly now, or neutral. Biggest challenge was happiness.
Next time better, BTW, 1st time I see such a monster development of a Civ on this level
drubell
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2010
- Messages
- 513
Game: Civ5 GOTM 13
Date submitted: 2011-06-11
Reference number: 24376
Your name: drubell
Game status: Science Wrong VC
Game date: 1914AD
Turns played: 335
Base score: 723
Final score: 1095
Time played: 9:24:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0335 AD-1915.Civ5Save
I don't know why it's telling me I got the "wrong VC." I clearly won by launching a spaceship in 1914 which was the designated VC. A lot of the time spent was writing a log as I was playing so other players can read it and determine how I could've easily improved my play.
I am by no means a good and experienced Civ player, and have no business being on Emperor level, but here’s the steps I made to take the decisions did. If anyone can provide some feedback to my choices, I’d appreciate it. This is actually my second game ever on Emperor, and never played Civ 4 much, so this was all very new to me except for what I know from playing Prince often.
There are links to screenshots so if you haven't completed the game don't look at them
I decided before starting the game that I was going to settle in place. The start looked interesting but without an obvious river site I knew that gold was going to be a large issue. So playing with the Legalism Wat trick would have been interesting but I didn’t want to risk a bad empire from the start. I want to make sure I can make get the gold from the fish without any complications; I would certainly grab the gems later.
Currency, I felt, was going to be a very important tech to help with my cash. I also needed a site for excess resources. I was also planning for a peaceful game without making a city where another civ would obviously go to war for the land. I just want to grow, grow, grow.
After turn 35, this journal is being written as I play.
0-10
I took my warrior west, where I found I was hugging coast. There was a barb camp very close to me unfortunately, but I did make sure to get my 30 gold from Bucharest. Rome came from the north, far north; he likely isn’t going to be a threat. I opened with Animal Husbandry to improve the cattle, then pottery/sailing seemed obvious. I sent my scout east to find a nice horse/spice/fish site, and I realize that the north end of my capital borders a lake, not an ocean! I am happy I settled where I did. I pop a culture hut early which I put into Tradition. My scout pops Archery, which wasn’t as interesting as Mining, but gives me the option of taking out the barbs with Archers.
At this time I’m interested in scouting the southeast end of this map (connect the gems and spices instead of the coastal horse/spice site?) and also see if the river in Bucharest flows to the south and I can make a nice commerce city there.
10-20
Since I realized it was just a big lake, I took my warrior back south. I found Rome’s border (and it was certain that I was not going to peacefully get any of those whales). The warrior pops a map hut and the land is good but unfortunately the river didn’t flow down there. It might be interesting after all to make it a commerce city but I’m not certain yet. I certainly don’t have any opposition for the west site at least.
On the other hand, the east land is VERY VERY good. The extra gem, 2 spices, fish, and two cattle makes the most obvious city site ever. If there was a river there too, I would’ve called it a hax city. I plan to settle where Wu’s scout is at the moment so I can make use of riverside farms for more growth and gold. I believe I take Legalism somewhere between these turns.
20-35
Not much exploration in general. I take a lot of time beating back barbs. I take the barb camp to the west on turn 35 and my scout takes the barb camps to the east (I’ll be sending that warrior back to the east and clear out my city site. Washington appears eventually from the west, so I assume he’s west of Bucharest; not a serious threat. The only threat I’m worried about so far is if Wu is close to the east and will get upset if I build to the east.
I take Mining to get the gems going, then Writing for Open Borders selling/NC. I take Landed Elite and currently I plan to get Monarchy next (the gold and happiness will be very welcome). I didn’t plan the turns perfectly though; when I finish producing my worker and work boat, I had 3 turns of “waiting” before I can tech Writing and get my library going. As you can see, I’m taking this opportunity to sink some hammers into another worker (will switch to Library as soon as soon as Writing techs).
Current plan is to focus on hammers to get the library running and then NC, and then get my settler out.
36-45
I get Writing and turn to Production focus and work on the Library. Sending the warrior back to heal in the capital and then clear out the east. I won some battles with my scout and so promoted him with Survivalism (in retrospect, not a great idea, but I really wanted my scout to clear out these camps).
At this point, I’m wishy-wishy on my Tech choices. I could go for Iron Working and see if any of the land I’m interested in has Iron, but that doesn’t really fit directly into my game plan. I could go directly for Currency as I planned, but Wheel isn’t going to help me immediately until I get the second city running and Mathematics is useless to me until I know if I have Iron for catapults. I don’t need to go to Civil Service right away because I’m not dealing with fresh water farms. The option to have the Pike would be the most interesting thing to me at the moment out of Civil Service. Optics would, on the other hand, benefit the fish I have right now with a Lighthouse, and also push me into the Classical Era.
So I take Optics, will do Iron Working in case I need defense, and then work toward Currency. That’s the plan, at least. It slows down my work to Education, but I feel that overall it will make for a stronger empire.
Turn 41, I take my scout north and find a wounded brute with a worker! I take it and am very happy about this circumstance. Washington also declares war on Caesar, which is awesome because it’s not me. Very good turn!
On Turn 45, I finish researching Optics, and as you can see I’m just now finishing escorting my new worker to the capital with my scout. My warrior is healed too, and my scout will look for Wu’s lands while my warrior will keep pressuring barbs in the east (lottts of barbs there geez) I will research Bronze Working at the very least before deciding whether or not to go directly for Currency.
45-55
Turn 48, Washington and Rome declare peace (waaat, already?) Washington got the better end of the deal I think since he is rich now. Wu has a LOT of very very pointy sticks I find out, so my plan is still to know just how far away she is before I consider settling east. I teched Bronze Working and will then move toward Currency. I believe this is the best tech move (and correct me if I am wrong.). With the free worker, I’m also much more willing to research Wheel earlier for the eventual trade route.
On Turn 49, I find Wu. She is east of me as I expected, but at this point I don’t know if that’s her capital (I just see the green border) so basically I don’t know where she plans to build her next city. This is really the only diplo threat I’m worried about at this time. As you can see, is connected by a small land bridge (can’t tell yet if there’s another way around). I sold her Open Borders and am not particularly pressed to buy it back yet, so I’ll deal with not knowing her lands yet.
By Turn 55, my capital’s resources are almost all improved. My settler is getting production focus and is almost done. I also get my next social policy, which I immediately put into Monarchy. I’m going to want to get to the Medieval Era before my next policy because I’m going to want Secularism I think, but only if I decide Bucharest is interesting to buy with my limited gold intake. It is a hostile city-state so I think it would be a waste of gold.
I see that fish/cattle/spice city at the east part of the map here that would get me a lot of gold but I am certain Wu would not like me settling there.
59-65
My settler finally finishes! The city site it suggests is interesting. Having a riverside city and culture-grabbing the luxuries. However, in my not-so-expert opinion, settling on the 2-food coast tile will still be better. That way I can work the fish, possibly go for Merchant Navy, I’ll be getting food and gold from working those luxuries asap, and I can culture grab the river-side farms any other time.
I also realize at this point that I haven’t teched Calendar yet. So I will make this quick change before finishing Currency. It’ll take some time to work those spices anyway, so I shouldn’t be too bad off. I’d like an opinion of whether or not it was wise for me to ignore the city site the game suggested and settle on the 2-food tile. Though I wouldn’t be settling on a resource, I think it’s the best way to culture-grab river-side farms later (much-later, unfortunately).
Also, my capital grabbed those pearls! So building a work boat there immediately after the College is now done.
Except at Turn 63, I realize I made a goof. I can’t get those pearls from this side. So what I plan instead is to settle where I planned to, buy the fish tile, and use that work boat to hook up the fish as soon as possible. I also bite the bullet and buy Open Borders with Wu to see where her city was. Beijing was right there as soon as I walked in! I am very grateful I didn’t get greedy and settle on the river. I think Wu is much less likely to declare from where I am. My other worker is beginning a road (since my pop is sufficient with my improvements), but since I couldn’t work those pearls after all, I’ll probably change my mind. My build order in the second city is library/lighthouse/market
I am considering settling my third city west after all. I don’t want Wu to declare on me because I don’t want to get in a war. She has a lot of units in her capital, and I will know very soon what she plans to do with them. I also realize my warrior was out of position. I’m taking him back to my capital, checking the west, and then maybe explore Rome a bit.
Somewhere in here Washington offers a DoF with me but I’m still fairly sure that Rome and Washington are going to declare again later and I don’t want to get involved in it.
65-70
Around turn 70, I realized that the units were for Gandhi! Gandhi was at war with her, had a very high score and had a city near her capital. She is bombarding it heavily, so I am glad for this. However, this gave me not many options for my next city even though I was definitely going to pump it out immediately. In the following screenshot, there is a potential site with marble and whales, as well as the ability to make the work boat for my capital’s pearls, but it’s filled with desert and marsh to clean out, and also doesn’t have much in the way of hammer tiles to get a lot of production out of the city. It’s a tentative site for now, but I do think I have the room and resources for 4 cities.
I finish Currency, and so I believe I will work toward Iron Working -> Masonry -> Construction and then really crank out the Science techs and get to Education immediately. After I get my third settler moving I will likely go for the Great Library in my capital to help bulb me there.
71- Wu declares peace after taking Gandhi’s city
74- Caesar declares on Washington (good thing I didn’t take that DoF with Washington)
I also meet Egypt at this time.
75-80
Iron is revealed. It is now clear that I will definitely be taking the west city site (only 2 iron, but the east area is also only 2 iron. Only iron on my little lake area. On Turn 76 my settler suggests that I take the marble/whales city and I think as long as I limit its growth I can’t complain with it. So I’m going to settle there, though maybe overall it’s not the best move?
80-85
I have a decision to make here. Rome just made Antium very close to where I plan to settle (a really crappy city for him too). I really have to weigh whether or not to commit to this city. Rome is stronger than I am and I don’t want to get into a conflict with him. Nevertheless, I can potentially get 15 happiness from this city (including my capital’s pearls). I have no choice but to make the city, and I hope that the fact I didn’t DoF Washington will help my diplo with Rome. I just hope I didn’t make a critical mistake. I purchase a work boat for the fish in the third city and will likely do the same for the whales when I get culture for that (retro: I buy that tile after all because the city wants to grow and take the river land first). I purchase another work boat to work the capital’s pearls. For now I build a library.
I also establish my trade route between the capital and second city and am going to work the third city’s resources. This free worker is definitely pulling his weight! My warrior is still scouting north and New York is very well almost burnt down. I’m very glad to still be peaceful. I put hammer production into the Great Library and HOPE I can time it with Education and finally get that. Hopefully another Civ won’t take it first.
Around 90 a wounded barb drops by to die in my capital looking at Washington/Rome and I decide that I had put my warrior out of position again. I’m just going to keep him in the capital and now my scout is embarked to explore. Caesar just left his war with Washington so I am even more worried about a DoW from him now that he’s not dealing with Washington.
97- I get a new policy, but unfortunately I didn’t get it before the Renaissance which would’ve been in not too long, but that’s my mistake. I don’t feel I had a good choice except for either Oligarchy or open up Commerce. My capital has respectable income right now and so I open Commerce. The rest of my social policies will either be for going for Merchant Navy opening Rationalism and getting some Science policies, I feel.
100
Well here’s the map where I am at this point. I get the Great Library next turn (I will delay it a turn to make sure I get Civil Service first I think and then will bulb Education. I’m getting my workers to improve the third city, will road it soon, and then make the fourth and final city. I’ve embarked my scout and have met many city-states that I might ally with, but I don’t think I need any maritime bonuses. If anything I’ll buy a culture city. Unless I’m getting declared on, I don’t think there’s going to be any surprises. I am #1 in science, money, and growth by far at this point. The only possible threat I can see is Rome declaring on me, and if I think he’s going to, I’ll bribe Washington to go to war with him.
So updates will be more infrequent. I will be doing my best to get my fourth city up,
I’m getting enough GPT that I’m taking RAs.
Making sure every city is getting a wat->lighthouse->market -> circus (if applicable or needed)
Compass -> Astronomy -> Horseback Riding (that would be embarrassing to RA) ->Metal Casting -> Navigation -> bulb Archeology from a GS
125-
Made my fourth city, purchased a library and lighthouse, also purchased a third worker to improve it and purchased a work boat for the fourth city, building wat -> market in it. Will upgrade the warrior when I get the iron worked. Building a caravel to meet the last 2 civs and then Porcelain Tower in the capital. After wats I will start on workshops over markets.
128- Wu declares on Gandhi. I reopened borders with Rome but the amount he’s willing to sell for is going down, which to me is a sign of an early DoW. I’m making sure to keep money in the bank for a rushbuy of units if need be. Washington comes in with another DoF a little later but I refuse again. I don’t want to piss off Rome at all.
134- Wu makes peace with Gandhi
138- Finally find Arabia!
139- RA gives me Steel which is fine. I’m currently catching up on all the techs that will bring me to Biology.
153- Wu takes Gandhi’s capital
157- Wu conquers India. I severely hope she doesn’t make me her next target.
160- America and Arabia (next turn) denounce China. As long as they’re not looking at me, I still don’t care, and it gives Wu a target who isn’t me!
175-
Things are still doing well. I’m getting a lot of money from excess resources and my fourth city is now my commerce city and making trading posts there. I rushbuy things like seaports or workshops if I feel the production is worth getting now (bought a seaport and workshop in the fourth city). My next SP will be secularism which will make my science even better. Hopefully I can get Free Thought too, but that’ll be 43 turns. Porcelain Tower is almost done. I have a GS for bulbing Biology and another for what I feel will be useful later.. I made sure to put scientists in my wats as soon as they were made so I should get getting more GS soon. I also have about 2 or 3 outstanding RAs coming in soon.
Caesar’s not very fair with trades so I’m making an elephant to put on my third city’s borders just in case. I’ll likely make a second one too.
I finally find Oda on my next turn too. Sneaky little guy! I sell him Spices and make a RA with him.
177-
This may be my solution to deal with Mr. “I am Caesar I don’t need to make fair trades with you.” Wu will go to war with Caesar for 550 gold if I need her to. However, I realize that the units on my north border are not Rome’s but from city-states fighting each other. I had no problem with those units blocking Caesar from getting units to me! So I don’t have any immediate plans to bribe Wu to declare on Caesar, but I am glad to know it’s an option.
178
However, when I start working on this farm, I see some units from Wu. I’m not going to gamble on to why she is there; her only global diplomacy is that she denounced Arabia. I’m not going to risk a DoW. I’m going to take her denunciation of Arabia to my advantage and make this trade to go to war with Arabia.
Porcelain Tower finishes and I’m going to continue in hammer focus to make Oxford. The next turn she advances more units onto my lands, and Egypt denounces China. I don’t really know what to expect here. I expected her units to move to Arabia after I get them in a war, so I have no idea what she’s planning to do with her units. And at 180, she finally declares on me (but at least I was able to get her into war with Arabia too).
This isn’t a terrible time for this I think because my cities have all of the buildings I wanted; wat, market, library, lighthouse, seaport, monument (along with a few happiness buildings I needed). I’ll stave off my Oxford rush and start making elephants to fend off Wu (who has muskets and knights). I also finish Scientific Theory and bulb Biology, and buy an elephant.
182
Her units leave. Maybe she went to attack Arabia after all? If so, I am SO glad I made that bribe. Still, I will continue to keep making some elephants since Rome has a Legion embarked near me too. 3 elephants and my longsword should work out alright I think. But then Wu’s units come back next turn. Anyway, this is what things look like at the moment.
184
As you can see, I am not too good at war.. some tips would be appreciated as for what to do in this situation. This is a recurring problem in all of my games; I never have the amount of units that I should. I’m trying to make buildings after all. When should I be making units? Rome declares on me too the next turn. Still I did get to this many turns before my first DoW. I stop my Porcelain Tower production to get my capital to push out another elephant.
195
After a very close war, this is starting to end in my favor. I was literally one turn away from losing the second city with China’s damn unique archers. Rome only attacked me with archers and spears, so thank god he did not have advanced units. His couple legions are no match for my elephants. I lost my initial warrior/longsword and two elephants. Buying elephants was crucial to winning this assault. I’ll be finishing up the elephants I’m making now and then focus back on winning the game. Need to build Public Schools.
195-210
Next turn Wu comes to ask for a peace treaty if I get her EVERYTHING I own. I decline. Rome also asks for a peace treaty but I refuse for now. I want to kick him out of my borders and see if he’ll give me gold with that treaty too. A few turns later, I upgrade some elephants with cavalry Rome is quite happy to give me all of his stuff to peace. Everything worked out just fine.
I go for a Ironworks -> National Market in the capital because of the Commerce bonus, then will make Public School there. My other cities are working on Public School as well. I tech Fertilizer and then bulb Electricity, Refrigeration, and Plastics to push me into the Modern Era.
210
This is what we’re looking at here. I have a cavalry looking at Wu’s land in case she comes back, otherwise the rest of my cavalry is going to garrison and otherwise just stick around. Rome is guarded and won’t trade with me, but he lost his chance. He’s a garbage civ now. Unfortunately, my demographics are bad except for my literacy. At this point I’m just doing everything I can to tech and rush to the spaceship.
217
I get my next SP which I put into Free Thought. Rome settled the deer but that’s fine, it’s a crap city. But why does Washington have Minutemen on my borders? What’s this all about? Will be building Circus Maximus in capital, then get research labs going. I’m also adding specialists for my workshops. I also ally with Seoul.
I have a lot of money and should be taking use of my UA, and it is a neutral cultural city-state with a luxury resource I don’t have so it appeals to me.
246
Wu finally gives me a straight up peace treaty which I sign. I will get Globalization next turn and need to take a SP, so I will bulb Telegraph and Electronics. I had never played Siam before so I didn’t realize just how good it is to ally with cultured city-states, so I may have misplayed by not getting the culture boost sooner. In any case, I will take Scientific Revolution and then decide whether to finish out the Rationalism tree or go to Order. Merchant Navy doesn’t appeal to me at the moment because I don’t want to go through Naval Tradition to get it, and the rest of the Rationalism and Order tree are good for my empire.
Capital gets a Bank then Granary.
275
A few turns back I made a bad error in not realizing that Spaceship Factories required Factories, which I was not building. I didn’t have coal so I bought some cheap coal from Washington and am building factories. I don’t know if I’ll have the time to build spaceship factories before I need to get my ship built, but the factory alone will help a bit. But this mistake is going to cost me turns. I turn on Production focus and probably won’t turn that off for the rest of the game. I have specialists in all of my science and production buildings (unless I don’t get much benefit from a production specialist). I also get a new SP after that realization and decided that Order was definitely what I needed to build these factories, so I took that.
But then I’m also worried about Egypt. He has 5/5/4/4 SPs.. why doesn’t Wu ever go after him instead? I take note that I need to win soon. I’m not going to waste time with Space Stations; if I wanted those factories up I needed them much sooner. I’m instead going to just go factory -> mechs, get the spaceship parts as I need them, and hopefully win in a decent time. I plan to rushbuy mechs too; I don’t think there’s anything else I want to do with my gold.
I put my workers on automate after I got Free Thought and now they’re just making trading posts.. maybe I could’ve micro’d better.
Next turn I move a cavalry to see Wu is already getting ready to stomp me again. I get my cavalry out am going to buy mechs.
278
This is pretty clear. I sell her excess spices, and now I’m going to denounce her and DoW her and take that artillery out now.
284
I make a nice preemptive DoW on Wu and take out three cannons and a few rifles with a GG, I lost my two cavalry garrisoned on the east cities, but my mech tore things up. However, the amount of units Washington has is a bit unsettling. I try to make a DoF to see if that would force him to keep out of war with me for a few turns. He declines, and I’m anticipating a very costly DoW.
So I try to make this trade:
285
Trade goes through and I buy another mech. It’s possible that Washington is just moving a lot of troops to that junk city to the south, and I’m just going to have to trust that, because I am absolutely dead if he DoWs.
287
Never trust other civs.. Washington declares on me, and so we’re looking at a very possible bad end. Two of my mechs are out of position because I wanted to harass Wu, but I did just finish another mech in the capital. I have some GS sitting around waiting for me to finish Rocketry but I’m going to have to just bulb them now so they don’t die. I will start the Apollo Program as soon as it bulbs and before it finishes I’m going to need to continue to push out mechs.
I also have a cavalry that it’s in a good position to really damage a cannon, so I’ll see what I can do. This just leaves Particle Physics and Nanotechnology to make before I launch, so I don’t need all of these science specialists anymore. I remove my scientists.
291
The initial fights aren’t too bad. It would’ve been a lot worse if I hadn’t had the mech in my capital made, and getting a GG was so nice to have too. I think the bribe split Washington’s forces because now he’s destroying Rome. Overall, I’m doing pretty well after the DoW. But now Rome is setting up on my borders too?!
295
Wu makes peace with me because Arabia happens to be kicking her ass. This is fine for me because Washington also asked for everything I owned a little earlier. I’m leaving a mech up on the third city in case Rome does something silly, but otherwise I’m going to attack San Fran to try and a better treaty.
299
I attack and raze San Fran. I also open borders with Caesar because I think I’m going to use my cavalry to take out a cannon. I really have nothing to gain by letting Washington take that Rome city. Wu is about to lose her second city, making her now, finally, not a threat! I’m thinking of getting rid of that American city on the southeast of my borders, but it’s such a bad and small city that I don’t think I’ll take the happiness hit for it. My goal is to just get Washington to give me a treaty in my favor. Apollo Program in 6 turns.
305
Apollo Project finished. Rome is also finished except for some crap city near my border. This isn’t great because America now has two strong points to attack me from. I get my next (and likely last) SP in my next turn, and I am going to make it Nationalism. The only thing stopping me from victory is Washington swarming me, which I am sure he’s going to try. All production is going to spaceship parts now, still hammer focus.
(cont)
Date submitted: 2011-06-11
Reference number: 24376
Your name: drubell
Game status: Science Wrong VC
Game date: 1914AD
Turns played: 335
Base score: 723
Final score: 1095
Time played: 9:24:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0335 AD-1915.Civ5Save
I don't know why it's telling me I got the "wrong VC." I clearly won by launching a spaceship in 1914 which was the designated VC. A lot of the time spent was writing a log as I was playing so other players can read it and determine how I could've easily improved my play.
I am by no means a good and experienced Civ player, and have no business being on Emperor level, but here’s the steps I made to take the decisions did. If anyone can provide some feedback to my choices, I’d appreciate it. This is actually my second game ever on Emperor, and never played Civ 4 much, so this was all very new to me except for what I know from playing Prince often.
There are links to screenshots so if you haven't completed the game don't look at them
I decided before starting the game that I was going to settle in place. The start looked interesting but without an obvious river site I knew that gold was going to be a large issue. So playing with the Legalism Wat trick would have been interesting but I didn’t want to risk a bad empire from the start. I want to make sure I can make get the gold from the fish without any complications; I would certainly grab the gems later.
Currency, I felt, was going to be a very important tech to help with my cash. I also needed a site for excess resources. I was also planning for a peaceful game without making a city where another civ would obviously go to war for the land. I just want to grow, grow, grow.
After turn 35, this journal is being written as I play.
0-10
I took my warrior west, where I found I was hugging coast. There was a barb camp very close to me unfortunately, but I did make sure to get my 30 gold from Bucharest. Rome came from the north, far north; he likely isn’t going to be a threat. I opened with Animal Husbandry to improve the cattle, then pottery/sailing seemed obvious. I sent my scout east to find a nice horse/spice/fish site, and I realize that the north end of my capital borders a lake, not an ocean! I am happy I settled where I did. I pop a culture hut early which I put into Tradition. My scout pops Archery, which wasn’t as interesting as Mining, but gives me the option of taking out the barbs with Archers.
At this time I’m interested in scouting the southeast end of this map (connect the gems and spices instead of the coastal horse/spice site?) and also see if the river in Bucharest flows to the south and I can make a nice commerce city there.
10-20
Since I realized it was just a big lake, I took my warrior back south. I found Rome’s border (and it was certain that I was not going to peacefully get any of those whales). The warrior pops a map hut and the land is good but unfortunately the river didn’t flow down there. It might be interesting after all to make it a commerce city but I’m not certain yet. I certainly don’t have any opposition for the west site at least.
On the other hand, the east land is VERY VERY good. The extra gem, 2 spices, fish, and two cattle makes the most obvious city site ever. If there was a river there too, I would’ve called it a hax city. I plan to settle where Wu’s scout is at the moment so I can make use of riverside farms for more growth and gold. I believe I take Legalism somewhere between these turns.
20-35
Not much exploration in general. I take a lot of time beating back barbs. I take the barb camp to the west on turn 35 and my scout takes the barb camps to the east (I’ll be sending that warrior back to the east and clear out my city site. Washington appears eventually from the west, so I assume he’s west of Bucharest; not a serious threat. The only threat I’m worried about so far is if Wu is close to the east and will get upset if I build to the east.
I take Mining to get the gems going, then Writing for Open Borders selling/NC. I take Landed Elite and currently I plan to get Monarchy next (the gold and happiness will be very welcome). I didn’t plan the turns perfectly though; when I finish producing my worker and work boat, I had 3 turns of “waiting” before I can tech Writing and get my library going. As you can see, I’m taking this opportunity to sink some hammers into another worker (will switch to Library as soon as soon as Writing techs).
Current plan is to focus on hammers to get the library running and then NC, and then get my settler out.
36-45
I get Writing and turn to Production focus and work on the Library. Sending the warrior back to heal in the capital and then clear out the east. I won some battles with my scout and so promoted him with Survivalism (in retrospect, not a great idea, but I really wanted my scout to clear out these camps).
At this point, I’m wishy-wishy on my Tech choices. I could go for Iron Working and see if any of the land I’m interested in has Iron, but that doesn’t really fit directly into my game plan. I could go directly for Currency as I planned, but Wheel isn’t going to help me immediately until I get the second city running and Mathematics is useless to me until I know if I have Iron for catapults. I don’t need to go to Civil Service right away because I’m not dealing with fresh water farms. The option to have the Pike would be the most interesting thing to me at the moment out of Civil Service. Optics would, on the other hand, benefit the fish I have right now with a Lighthouse, and also push me into the Classical Era.
So I take Optics, will do Iron Working in case I need defense, and then work toward Currency. That’s the plan, at least. It slows down my work to Education, but I feel that overall it will make for a stronger empire.
Turn 41, I take my scout north and find a wounded brute with a worker! I take it and am very happy about this circumstance. Washington also declares war on Caesar, which is awesome because it’s not me. Very good turn!
On Turn 45, I finish researching Optics, and as you can see I’m just now finishing escorting my new worker to the capital with my scout. My warrior is healed too, and my scout will look for Wu’s lands while my warrior will keep pressuring barbs in the east (lottts of barbs there geez) I will research Bronze Working at the very least before deciding whether or not to go directly for Currency.
45-55
Turn 48, Washington and Rome declare peace (waaat, already?) Washington got the better end of the deal I think since he is rich now. Wu has a LOT of very very pointy sticks I find out, so my plan is still to know just how far away she is before I consider settling east. I teched Bronze Working and will then move toward Currency. I believe this is the best tech move (and correct me if I am wrong.). With the free worker, I’m also much more willing to research Wheel earlier for the eventual trade route.
On Turn 49, I find Wu. She is east of me as I expected, but at this point I don’t know if that’s her capital (I just see the green border) so basically I don’t know where she plans to build her next city. This is really the only diplo threat I’m worried about at this time. As you can see, is connected by a small land bridge (can’t tell yet if there’s another way around). I sold her Open Borders and am not particularly pressed to buy it back yet, so I’ll deal with not knowing her lands yet.
By Turn 55, my capital’s resources are almost all improved. My settler is getting production focus and is almost done. I also get my next social policy, which I immediately put into Monarchy. I’m going to want to get to the Medieval Era before my next policy because I’m going to want Secularism I think, but only if I decide Bucharest is interesting to buy with my limited gold intake. It is a hostile city-state so I think it would be a waste of gold.
I see that fish/cattle/spice city at the east part of the map here that would get me a lot of gold but I am certain Wu would not like me settling there.
59-65
My settler finally finishes! The city site it suggests is interesting. Having a riverside city and culture-grabbing the luxuries. However, in my not-so-expert opinion, settling on the 2-food coast tile will still be better. That way I can work the fish, possibly go for Merchant Navy, I’ll be getting food and gold from working those luxuries asap, and I can culture grab the river-side farms any other time.
I also realize at this point that I haven’t teched Calendar yet. So I will make this quick change before finishing Currency. It’ll take some time to work those spices anyway, so I shouldn’t be too bad off. I’d like an opinion of whether or not it was wise for me to ignore the city site the game suggested and settle on the 2-food tile. Though I wouldn’t be settling on a resource, I think it’s the best way to culture-grab river-side farms later (much-later, unfortunately).
Also, my capital grabbed those pearls! So building a work boat there immediately after the College is now done.
Except at Turn 63, I realize I made a goof. I can’t get those pearls from this side. So what I plan instead is to settle where I planned to, buy the fish tile, and use that work boat to hook up the fish as soon as possible. I also bite the bullet and buy Open Borders with Wu to see where her city was. Beijing was right there as soon as I walked in! I am very grateful I didn’t get greedy and settle on the river. I think Wu is much less likely to declare from where I am. My other worker is beginning a road (since my pop is sufficient with my improvements), but since I couldn’t work those pearls after all, I’ll probably change my mind. My build order in the second city is library/lighthouse/market
I am considering settling my third city west after all. I don’t want Wu to declare on me because I don’t want to get in a war. She has a lot of units in her capital, and I will know very soon what she plans to do with them. I also realize my warrior was out of position. I’m taking him back to my capital, checking the west, and then maybe explore Rome a bit.
Somewhere in here Washington offers a DoF with me but I’m still fairly sure that Rome and Washington are going to declare again later and I don’t want to get involved in it.
65-70
Around turn 70, I realized that the units were for Gandhi! Gandhi was at war with her, had a very high score and had a city near her capital. She is bombarding it heavily, so I am glad for this. However, this gave me not many options for my next city even though I was definitely going to pump it out immediately. In the following screenshot, there is a potential site with marble and whales, as well as the ability to make the work boat for my capital’s pearls, but it’s filled with desert and marsh to clean out, and also doesn’t have much in the way of hammer tiles to get a lot of production out of the city. It’s a tentative site for now, but I do think I have the room and resources for 4 cities.
I finish Currency, and so I believe I will work toward Iron Working -> Masonry -> Construction and then really crank out the Science techs and get to Education immediately. After I get my third settler moving I will likely go for the Great Library in my capital to help bulb me there.
71- Wu declares peace after taking Gandhi’s city
74- Caesar declares on Washington (good thing I didn’t take that DoF with Washington)
I also meet Egypt at this time.
75-80
Iron is revealed. It is now clear that I will definitely be taking the west city site (only 2 iron, but the east area is also only 2 iron. Only iron on my little lake area. On Turn 76 my settler suggests that I take the marble/whales city and I think as long as I limit its growth I can’t complain with it. So I’m going to settle there, though maybe overall it’s not the best move?
80-85
I have a decision to make here. Rome just made Antium very close to where I plan to settle (a really crappy city for him too). I really have to weigh whether or not to commit to this city. Rome is stronger than I am and I don’t want to get into a conflict with him. Nevertheless, I can potentially get 15 happiness from this city (including my capital’s pearls). I have no choice but to make the city, and I hope that the fact I didn’t DoF Washington will help my diplo with Rome. I just hope I didn’t make a critical mistake. I purchase a work boat for the fish in the third city and will likely do the same for the whales when I get culture for that (retro: I buy that tile after all because the city wants to grow and take the river land first). I purchase another work boat to work the capital’s pearls. For now I build a library.
I also establish my trade route between the capital and second city and am going to work the third city’s resources. This free worker is definitely pulling his weight! My warrior is still scouting north and New York is very well almost burnt down. I’m very glad to still be peaceful. I put hammer production into the Great Library and HOPE I can time it with Education and finally get that. Hopefully another Civ won’t take it first.
Around 90 a wounded barb drops by to die in my capital looking at Washington/Rome and I decide that I had put my warrior out of position again. I’m just going to keep him in the capital and now my scout is embarked to explore. Caesar just left his war with Washington so I am even more worried about a DoW from him now that he’s not dealing with Washington.
97- I get a new policy, but unfortunately I didn’t get it before the Renaissance which would’ve been in not too long, but that’s my mistake. I don’t feel I had a good choice except for either Oligarchy or open up Commerce. My capital has respectable income right now and so I open Commerce. The rest of my social policies will either be for going for Merchant Navy opening Rationalism and getting some Science policies, I feel.
100
Well here’s the map where I am at this point. I get the Great Library next turn (I will delay it a turn to make sure I get Civil Service first I think and then will bulb Education. I’m getting my workers to improve the third city, will road it soon, and then make the fourth and final city. I’ve embarked my scout and have met many city-states that I might ally with, but I don’t think I need any maritime bonuses. If anything I’ll buy a culture city. Unless I’m getting declared on, I don’t think there’s going to be any surprises. I am #1 in science, money, and growth by far at this point. The only possible threat I can see is Rome declaring on me, and if I think he’s going to, I’ll bribe Washington to go to war with him.
So updates will be more infrequent. I will be doing my best to get my fourth city up,
I’m getting enough GPT that I’m taking RAs.
Making sure every city is getting a wat->lighthouse->market -> circus (if applicable or needed)
Compass -> Astronomy -> Horseback Riding (that would be embarrassing to RA) ->Metal Casting -> Navigation -> bulb Archeology from a GS
125-
Made my fourth city, purchased a library and lighthouse, also purchased a third worker to improve it and purchased a work boat for the fourth city, building wat -> market in it. Will upgrade the warrior when I get the iron worked. Building a caravel to meet the last 2 civs and then Porcelain Tower in the capital. After wats I will start on workshops over markets.
128- Wu declares on Gandhi. I reopened borders with Rome but the amount he’s willing to sell for is going down, which to me is a sign of an early DoW. I’m making sure to keep money in the bank for a rushbuy of units if need be. Washington comes in with another DoF a little later but I refuse again. I don’t want to piss off Rome at all.
134- Wu makes peace with Gandhi
138- Finally find Arabia!
139- RA gives me Steel which is fine. I’m currently catching up on all the techs that will bring me to Biology.
153- Wu takes Gandhi’s capital
157- Wu conquers India. I severely hope she doesn’t make me her next target.
160- America and Arabia (next turn) denounce China. As long as they’re not looking at me, I still don’t care, and it gives Wu a target who isn’t me!
175-
Things are still doing well. I’m getting a lot of money from excess resources and my fourth city is now my commerce city and making trading posts there. I rushbuy things like seaports or workshops if I feel the production is worth getting now (bought a seaport and workshop in the fourth city). My next SP will be secularism which will make my science even better. Hopefully I can get Free Thought too, but that’ll be 43 turns. Porcelain Tower is almost done. I have a GS for bulbing Biology and another for what I feel will be useful later.. I made sure to put scientists in my wats as soon as they were made so I should get getting more GS soon. I also have about 2 or 3 outstanding RAs coming in soon.
Caesar’s not very fair with trades so I’m making an elephant to put on my third city’s borders just in case. I’ll likely make a second one too.
I finally find Oda on my next turn too. Sneaky little guy! I sell him Spices and make a RA with him.
177-
This may be my solution to deal with Mr. “I am Caesar I don’t need to make fair trades with you.” Wu will go to war with Caesar for 550 gold if I need her to. However, I realize that the units on my north border are not Rome’s but from city-states fighting each other. I had no problem with those units blocking Caesar from getting units to me! So I don’t have any immediate plans to bribe Wu to declare on Caesar, but I am glad to know it’s an option.
178
However, when I start working on this farm, I see some units from Wu. I’m not going to gamble on to why she is there; her only global diplomacy is that she denounced Arabia. I’m not going to risk a DoW. I’m going to take her denunciation of Arabia to my advantage and make this trade to go to war with Arabia.
Porcelain Tower finishes and I’m going to continue in hammer focus to make Oxford. The next turn she advances more units onto my lands, and Egypt denounces China. I don’t really know what to expect here. I expected her units to move to Arabia after I get them in a war, so I have no idea what she’s planning to do with her units. And at 180, she finally declares on me (but at least I was able to get her into war with Arabia too).
This isn’t a terrible time for this I think because my cities have all of the buildings I wanted; wat, market, library, lighthouse, seaport, monument (along with a few happiness buildings I needed). I’ll stave off my Oxford rush and start making elephants to fend off Wu (who has muskets and knights). I also finish Scientific Theory and bulb Biology, and buy an elephant.
182
Her units leave. Maybe she went to attack Arabia after all? If so, I am SO glad I made that bribe. Still, I will continue to keep making some elephants since Rome has a Legion embarked near me too. 3 elephants and my longsword should work out alright I think. But then Wu’s units come back next turn. Anyway, this is what things look like at the moment.
184
As you can see, I am not too good at war.. some tips would be appreciated as for what to do in this situation. This is a recurring problem in all of my games; I never have the amount of units that I should. I’m trying to make buildings after all. When should I be making units? Rome declares on me too the next turn. Still I did get to this many turns before my first DoW. I stop my Porcelain Tower production to get my capital to push out another elephant.
195
After a very close war, this is starting to end in my favor. I was literally one turn away from losing the second city with China’s damn unique archers. Rome only attacked me with archers and spears, so thank god he did not have advanced units. His couple legions are no match for my elephants. I lost my initial warrior/longsword and two elephants. Buying elephants was crucial to winning this assault. I’ll be finishing up the elephants I’m making now and then focus back on winning the game. Need to build Public Schools.
195-210
Next turn Wu comes to ask for a peace treaty if I get her EVERYTHING I own. I decline. Rome also asks for a peace treaty but I refuse for now. I want to kick him out of my borders and see if he’ll give me gold with that treaty too. A few turns later, I upgrade some elephants with cavalry Rome is quite happy to give me all of his stuff to peace. Everything worked out just fine.
I go for a Ironworks -> National Market in the capital because of the Commerce bonus, then will make Public School there. My other cities are working on Public School as well. I tech Fertilizer and then bulb Electricity, Refrigeration, and Plastics to push me into the Modern Era.
210
This is what we’re looking at here. I have a cavalry looking at Wu’s land in case she comes back, otherwise the rest of my cavalry is going to garrison and otherwise just stick around. Rome is guarded and won’t trade with me, but he lost his chance. He’s a garbage civ now. Unfortunately, my demographics are bad except for my literacy. At this point I’m just doing everything I can to tech and rush to the spaceship.
217
I get my next SP which I put into Free Thought. Rome settled the deer but that’s fine, it’s a crap city. But why does Washington have Minutemen on my borders? What’s this all about? Will be building Circus Maximus in capital, then get research labs going. I’m also adding specialists for my workshops. I also ally with Seoul.
I have a lot of money and should be taking use of my UA, and it is a neutral cultural city-state with a luxury resource I don’t have so it appeals to me.
246
Wu finally gives me a straight up peace treaty which I sign. I will get Globalization next turn and need to take a SP, so I will bulb Telegraph and Electronics. I had never played Siam before so I didn’t realize just how good it is to ally with cultured city-states, so I may have misplayed by not getting the culture boost sooner. In any case, I will take Scientific Revolution and then decide whether to finish out the Rationalism tree or go to Order. Merchant Navy doesn’t appeal to me at the moment because I don’t want to go through Naval Tradition to get it, and the rest of the Rationalism and Order tree are good for my empire.
Capital gets a Bank then Granary.
275
A few turns back I made a bad error in not realizing that Spaceship Factories required Factories, which I was not building. I didn’t have coal so I bought some cheap coal from Washington and am building factories. I don’t know if I’ll have the time to build spaceship factories before I need to get my ship built, but the factory alone will help a bit. But this mistake is going to cost me turns. I turn on Production focus and probably won’t turn that off for the rest of the game. I have specialists in all of my science and production buildings (unless I don’t get much benefit from a production specialist). I also get a new SP after that realization and decided that Order was definitely what I needed to build these factories, so I took that.
But then I’m also worried about Egypt. He has 5/5/4/4 SPs.. why doesn’t Wu ever go after him instead? I take note that I need to win soon. I’m not going to waste time with Space Stations; if I wanted those factories up I needed them much sooner. I’m instead going to just go factory -> mechs, get the spaceship parts as I need them, and hopefully win in a decent time. I plan to rushbuy mechs too; I don’t think there’s anything else I want to do with my gold.
I put my workers on automate after I got Free Thought and now they’re just making trading posts.. maybe I could’ve micro’d better.
Next turn I move a cavalry to see Wu is already getting ready to stomp me again. I get my cavalry out am going to buy mechs.
278
This is pretty clear. I sell her excess spices, and now I’m going to denounce her and DoW her and take that artillery out now.
284
I make a nice preemptive DoW on Wu and take out three cannons and a few rifles with a GG, I lost my two cavalry garrisoned on the east cities, but my mech tore things up. However, the amount of units Washington has is a bit unsettling. I try to make a DoF to see if that would force him to keep out of war with me for a few turns. He declines, and I’m anticipating a very costly DoW.
So I try to make this trade:
285
Trade goes through and I buy another mech. It’s possible that Washington is just moving a lot of troops to that junk city to the south, and I’m just going to have to trust that, because I am absolutely dead if he DoWs.
287
Never trust other civs.. Washington declares on me, and so we’re looking at a very possible bad end. Two of my mechs are out of position because I wanted to harass Wu, but I did just finish another mech in the capital. I have some GS sitting around waiting for me to finish Rocketry but I’m going to have to just bulb them now so they don’t die. I will start the Apollo Program as soon as it bulbs and before it finishes I’m going to need to continue to push out mechs.
I also have a cavalry that it’s in a good position to really damage a cannon, so I’ll see what I can do. This just leaves Particle Physics and Nanotechnology to make before I launch, so I don’t need all of these science specialists anymore. I remove my scientists.
291
The initial fights aren’t too bad. It would’ve been a lot worse if I hadn’t had the mech in my capital made, and getting a GG was so nice to have too. I think the bribe split Washington’s forces because now he’s destroying Rome. Overall, I’m doing pretty well after the DoW. But now Rome is setting up on my borders too?!
295
Wu makes peace with me because Arabia happens to be kicking her ass. This is fine for me because Washington also asked for everything I owned a little earlier. I’m leaving a mech up on the third city in case Rome does something silly, but otherwise I’m going to attack San Fran to try and a better treaty.
299
I attack and raze San Fran. I also open borders with Caesar because I think I’m going to use my cavalry to take out a cannon. I really have nothing to gain by letting Washington take that Rome city. Wu is about to lose her second city, making her now, finally, not a threat! I’m thinking of getting rid of that American city on the southeast of my borders, but it’s such a bad and small city that I don’t think I’ll take the happiness hit for it. My goal is to just get Washington to give me a treaty in my favor. Apollo Program in 6 turns.
305
Apollo Project finished. Rome is also finished except for some crap city near my border. This isn’t great because America now has two strong points to attack me from. I get my next (and likely last) SP in my next turn, and I am going to make it Nationalism. The only thing stopping me from victory is Washington swarming me, which I am sure he’s going to try. All production is going to spaceship parts now, still hammer focus.
(cont)
