TSG165 After Action thread

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG165 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!
STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.
Please attach your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.) In your post.
- How useful was your UA?
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- What techs did you prioritize ?
 
Wow, incredibly aggressive civ's destroyed me rather quickly. Went Liberty and settled to NE and NW, but didn't have enough time to build out defense and both cities were quickly overrun. Played a second time and focused on Liberty-worker track and only built one city to NE. Still alive after 200 turns but haven't made any progress while fighting off waves of Triremes from two different civs. They never stop. Plan to try a third strategy of focusing on Honor and building one worker for capital and then relying on a strong army to try and take cities as the 2 other civs plant cities on the island. The map is interesting, especially the small island to the north; but at this level I don't think I am talented enough to have any hope of winning. Would have been nice to play this map at two levels down.
Looking forward to hearing about any winning strategies out there.
 
Tried a third strategy based on Honor, only building military buildings and units (unlocked tradition and used tradition-oligarchy for the culture). Only built the capital. Two trade caravans and defensive pact with civ to my SE (they didn't help much in waves of attacks I received. Survived until T345. Hopefully someone won.
 
OK, went with a Tradition 4 city start. As previous poster mentioned, Spain was a pain in a butt and made development quite slow. Paid off Spain several times to attack Gao and yet Spain was still declaring on me as well (like 1-2 turns after the Gao declarations). Saved some money I guess. This did slow Spain though as enough Gao ships trickled through to help tie up the Spanish fleet (and Gao wasn't attacking me) till I got 4 archers around the NW city and then Spain was out.

Oh yes .. took me a while to realise the game was on Epic speed. Was wondering why everything took so long.

Anyway, finally took Madrid around T280 and after that it was just a matter of building up fleets. Or so I thought.

Development was slow as mentioned so both Brazil and Germany went Order before I got to choose philosophy. I cleverly went Autocracy to get the two free culture policies and took a second Spanish city and ... immediately went to -20 happiness. Tried to get out of that hole but just couldn't. (So replay so no submission.)

Went back and picked Order and game just played itself. Brazil and Germany obligingly attacked whoever I wanted for practically nothing. Until just they were left .. and then they weren't. Game ended at T410.

Lesson learnt though on the philosophy pick. Should have checked influence levels before ...

Sea Beggars are wonderful. They recruited almost my entire navy.

Spied my agent up to level 3 and then use him to coup city states.

Map type was helpful as it hindered AI (not so good at the navy stuff .. or even worse I should say).

Key to surviving early is (IMO) playing off the AIs against each other.
 
Settled only one city. Thought I'd go for the pantheon for jungle culture. Someone was picking that first. So the shrine was a waste of hammers...
Tradition was my choice, but whether that was a good one...
Bought a Trireme for exploration (guess that was ok)
When Spain declared war, I had just build a work boat for ressources, which they plundered. Another waste of hammers.
Was close to capturing the Spanish city on my continent, but was 1 or 2 units short...

Then I played quickly because I knew what was coming... two more civs declared war and I was even gone in the BCs...

@Ozmandius: I agree that the AI isn't good enough with naval warfare, but you first have to survive until sea beggars, I guess (well, with a few different choices, I might have had enough money to keep the AIs busy...)
 
Turn 517 resignation. Persia and Germany each had three spaceship parts. And I had just taken my first capital - Spain. I had a small fleet of battleships and destroyers but wasn't going to be able to take them out in time.

It was a very fun game though. I went Liberty thinking that on Archipelego there may be opportunity to expand. Wrong. As I was moving my settler up to the northwest to found my second city I see that the barb camp had captured a settler! Isabella had tried to encroach on my land already. I only ended up building 3 cities.

I figured I'd be safer on an Archepellego map too. Wrong again. Around turn 100 both Isabella and Askia DoW'd me. I have never been in such a large Trireme battle, it was great! Isabella had my city down to a sliver of red numerous times but couldn't get into position to make the killing blow. Later she came back with Galleas and had my city at zero health for many turns. But she must've not built any more Triremes after I destroyed her initial fleet and couldn't land units to actually take the city. So I survived.

Isabella would not make peace for thousands of years. And after the early war I was hopelessly behind. Even though I was stealing techs left and right, I could never catch up.
 
Hi, indeed not easy. I have to admit my first try was over in a few rounds. Askia and Spain wipped me out before i could build my third city.
After a zillion tries (about 10 or so) I did manage however. Mostly by playing very passively (only took one city, Madrid, with frigates and yes, a seabeggar) until i had battleships. Then slowly but surely expanding my realm :) also by bribing all otehrs into war.
So not according to the rules this time but i did want to see if and how it was possible.

I went for liberty and exploration and of course rationalism as soon as possible
No focus on faith and culture at all. Only military and city states for iron.

final score 2760 in turn 575. At that time i was also first in tech.
 
Hi boys and girls, i win this game (2900 score and 560 turn), but it was very hard. I reloaded many times. Next i describe my strategy.

1. Settled in place and build 4 city, then settled first city (to NW from capital) i took Spain settler and started war
2. I took Spain with trirems, 2 archers, 2 spears and 2 catapults
3. Then i pause with my war and wait until had sea beggars, with them i wiped out Songhai and Maya
4. after i changed my strategy i decided to take only capital and some cities that impedes my moving
5. i took Susa and Persepolis, then i second time pause my invasion because brazil was 15 tech ahead of me.
6. i concentrated on research and went to two key tech: atomic bomb and xcom, then i had first i began to build bombs took them to carriers and send to sweden
7 i began my invasion then i reached xcom, send all atomic bombs first and than drop XCOMs
8. i took Birka and Stockholm
9. Then i DOW Brazil took Rio after Germany and win game

My social policies were Libery, Exploration (3), Aesthetics (1), Rationalism (2), commerce (1), Patronage (2), then full autocracy, after ideology a took rationalism (1), exploration (1).

Key concept to victory - bribed war between AI

Now about questions:
- How useful was your UA?
very useful, i had a lot of troubles with happiness

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
yes, i spied much to overtake AI

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
i think map hinder victory because starting postion is near two aggresive civs, but there is place for 4 cities. Maybe map is balanced.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I decided to go in bottom line firs to protect myself, first build max cities that i can

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
described above

- What techs did you prioritize ?
First: after primary tech, went to constructin, civil service, metal casting, education, then navigation,
Second: ST and Electricity
Third: Radio and Plastics
Fourth: Nuclear Fission and Nanotechnology

it was very difficult game for me, thanks a lot to Knowtalent, very glad to win in it. Waiting for next games
 

Attachments

  • winWilliam_0560 AD-1955-January.Civ5Save
    1.6 MB · Views: 188
Last edited:
Game: Civ5 GOTM 165
Date submitted: 2017-12-31 18:24:33
Reference number: 35762
Your name: beetle
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 170BC
Turns played: 162
Base score: 108
Final score: 108
Time played: 1:29:00
Submitted save: William_0162 BC-0170 loss.Civ5Save
Renamed file: beetle_C516501.Civ5Save

I lost my cap early and resigned. I replayed and managed to survive, eventually losing by CV.

Then I played again from scratch, and did manage a Dom VC.

Thanks for the map @Knowtalent, I very much enjoyed playing it!
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 165
Date submitted: 2017-12-31 18:24:33
Reference number: 35762
Your name: beetle
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 170BC
Turns played: 162
Base score: 108
Final score: 108
Time played: 1:29:00
Submitted save: William_0162 BC-0170 loss.Civ5Save
Renamed file: beetle_C516501.Civ5Save

I lost my cap early and resigned. I replayed and managed to survive, eventually losing by CV.

Then I played again from scratch, and did manage a Dom VC.

Thanks for the map @Knowtalent, I very much enjoyed playing it!
Game: Civ5 GOTM 165
Date submitted: 2017-12-31 18:24:33
Reference number: 35762
Your name: beetle
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 170BC
Turns played: 162
Base score: 108
Final score: 108
Time played: 1:29:00
Submitted save: William_0162 BC-0170 loss.Civ5Save
Renamed file: beetle_C516501.Civ5Save

I lost my cap early and resigned. I replayed and managed to survive, eventually losing by CV.

Then I played again from scratch, and did manage a Dom VC.

Thanks for the map @Knowtalent, I very much enjoyed playing it!

I did very little to the over all map, I did select a mediocre civ as I hoped that would be a challenge. Its good to see that it was.
 
Wow, did anybody win on the first go?

OK this was the worst start imaginable, especially for me since I'm pretty bad at managing the AI to fight each other.

On my first playthrough I got backstabbed by issy on turn 95ish. played another 20 turns til I got backstabbed by Askia(I think the eastern civ).
Managing/bribing the AI to war is probably my weakest part of my game, but I'm getting better.

This setup is actually really fun to play. After a few restarts where I learned how to better manage issy (I realized I could pay her one lux when she was hostile to DOW her own friends), I had an attack rolling (turn 290, 3 capitals down and about to start to attack germany and brazil simultaneously). I left the game there since it wasn't going to be a real submission.

I did some practice runs of this setup on other random maps (this particular map is probably more difficult than most others (low production and the fact your capital gets the "They covet your lands" from your neighbor no easy worker steal)
My strategy is this.
Go Honor Right/Left then Exploration, Build 4 Exp. Have them send production to the capital (or other high production city) so get the capital to 75H or seabegger every 3 turns with Morale promotion(heroic epic). I've found that by turn 225 I could roughly have both Navigation and Armory. Sell every thing you can, I could ususally have 4/5 seabeggers wtih costalraider III and logistics attacking around turn 250, then it's just a matter of sweeping through the capitals about one every 15-20 turns. Try to get SoZ and GL in the first 2 or 3 capitals you capture. Definately possible to win with this in the 320-350 range.

you can also go liberty instead of honor which starts the attack sooner, but doesn't snowball as the honor finish and costal raider allows you to get to the point you can buy a seabeggar every 2-4 turns.

Seabeggars with logistics and exploration are OP move 2 to attack -> 2 attacks -> move 2 to safety rinse and repeat. Use a Great Admiral to reset a group and you can take down a city with 90 defense in 2 turns with 5 seabeggars.

How useful was your UA?
Extremely allows for a wider play if you take lands with unique luxuries.
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yes. getting a few tech steals can open the window of attack a few turns sooner.
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
helps a lot the seabegger + Armory = instant logistics which is crushing.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
not much
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- Honor - Exploration. Autocracy if the game was still going on.
- What techs did you prioritize ?
optics a little ealier than usual to get goodie huts off island and the lighthouse.
After philospopy went Machinery for workshops (instead of the usual education) then Navigation/Steel the last two are the key. Armory+Seabeggars.

Final thoughts, Thanks for putting this together, this setup was like playing a completely different game.
 
Turn 308 domination victory.

What a garbage start, but then I noticed that the game speed was super slow, so that meant you could bring it back with good ole FRIGATE RUSH.

It wasn't easy. I made 3 pretty bad cities, ultra slow start, Spain settled on my continent like a douche. I quickly bought all her tiles so she was angry the entire game. Askia was right next to me, settled on my island as well.
I only had time to make 2 triremes and 3 archers before Askia made his trireme rush. I barely defended against it and just wiped his garbage army out. Upgraded to comp bows and just razed his crappy city he made on my Island and peaced out.

Then of course Spain attacks, but I have a couple comp bows. Kill about 20 of her dumb trieremes but now I have the ULTIMATE TECH, GALLEAS.

Things go downhill quick from now. Sweden launches some random attack as well.

But from that point on, all I do is just spam Galleas and rush Navigation. I only found one city-state with 6 iron, so that limited the number of frigates I could ultimately make.

It took FOREVER to take Madrid with my Galleas, but I got about half of them upgraded to +1 range. The second I take Madrid, Askia starts a war again, Crush him, take Gao. Sweden and Persia also declare random war during this, but half my Galleas army and my comps are dealing with them.

So basically after that I just used my +1 range galleas and a few frigates to easily take over the entire map. I split them into 2 groups and took StockHolm last by just slamming all my ships into it lol. I killed probably 5-6 ships just ramming them in that city in one turn, just to make it faster.

Pretty tough game I have to say, I wasn't paying attention to much. I probably shouldn't have made 3 cities, I was unhappy the entire time, but whatever. I just took the AI in order of proximity so it took a while before I took the capitals with the Happiness wonders.

Have to say that slow game speed + archipelago always means annihilation for the AI. The trick is just to rush Galleas, probably build barracks ( which I hadn't done ) then just rush Navigation and do NOTHING WHATSOEVER but spam frigates and Privateers ( or in this case Sea Beggars ). The AI can't deal with frigates.
 
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