TSG183 AAR

Welcome to the TSG183 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 ?
- What did you think of the map and settings?​

 

Well, this was painful.

I will not submit since I rage quit my first attempt on t38 when I lost the GL by one turn. But then I restarted with the intention to go for SV. I didn´t even bother with a religion. But some 150 turns into the game I changed my mind and went for CV instead. So at the end I secured a "normal" (no sacred sites or anything like that) CV on turn 392. I founded four cities and captured Palenque as a fifth city. I managed to build at least one WW in every city. This attempt was not about fastest finish times, it was more about to see with what I could get away with. It took unnecessary long because I was at war with Japan (who had the most culture of the AIs) for a veeeery long time, he just would not make peace. Social policies were full Tradition, Honor opener, full Aesthetics, full Rationalism (only after finishing Aesthetics), nine points in Order and one point in Commerce. There were only six AIs left at the end: Japan (21 cities), the Incas (25), the Babs (11), Spain (35) , Portugal (2) and the Mayas (1). My city population was 30-25-25-24-23.

All in all, I liked that there were ruins and barbs. The map was all right but I was not fond of the starting location. As always, I would like to say "thank you" to the GotM team for making it happen.

 

I won't be submitting mine either. I *almost* rage-quit when I got beat to Petra by a couple of turns, but I kept going. But at turn 300 and I was way behind in every category (I think mainly from not getting Petra) and realized there was no path to victory in 100 more turns so I quit. That was Liberty with about 7 cities. I took a great engineer for the finisher and planted a manufactory because my production in Marrakesh sucked. I was mainly pushing science (planning on a science victory), but was still 10 tech behind.

Started over. Tradition this time, plus the Honor opener so my scouts and caravans will have a chance. And I did get Petra this time. Not sure if it will be enough; I'm not used to huge maps, especially with a turn limit.

Edit: just finished my second attempt, which I'm not going to submit but will attach a screenshot. Points victory on turn 400. I was planning to do science victory but would not be able to finish by turn 400, my points were pretty good already (but way behind Maya and Babylon) and Pacal had lots of wonders so I declared war and took them. I also settled an extremely late city thinking it would give me more points than it did (I think it was worth 4 points, so not worth the 500 I spent on a settler, but it will be a nice city someday if I Just One More Turn.

 

Game: Civ5 GOTM 183
Date submitted: 2019-06-28 22:59:43
Reference number: 36539
Your name: Rutseg
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1960AD
Turns played: 380
Base score: 2076
Final score: 2185
Time played: 15:25:00
Submitted save: GOTM183_Rutseg.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Rutseg_C518301.Civ5Save

At some moment I decided to go full Patronage and get a Diplomacy victory, but I could have obtained a Cultural victory (only had Babylon with high culture but I ended up conquering all their territory). With 20 more turns I would have launched a space ship too. Domination was far away, although I counted with a good bunch of capitals and military advantage by the end of the game.

Early on I decided to go with a wide empire (Huge maps seem to play good with that) and I was delighted with the amount of space left by the other civs in my continent. By turn 145 Pacal was already wiped out. I was not planning for a war game, but I had an army and so I profited. Indonesia was defeated 50 turns later. I was having great friendship with Inca, and I was willing to keep things like that, but they decided to backstab me, and so I finished wiping them out too, only keeping my good Portuguese neighbor at my continent (and a few Japanese colonies). I soon started building caravels and exploring the rest of the map, and so, I founded the world congress. After that I focused on my internal economy, focusing my diplomacy into befriending weak civs and making everybody angry at the lead ones. Spain was getting strong with many conquests and a huge army, but I made other civs to war her. Babylon was going fast in tech and world wonders, but I made him bully Siam and Austria whom I befriend. In the end game I finished liberating Siam from Babylon's hands and conquering most of their territory, just 1 turn before winning the Diplomatic vote.

- How useful was your UA?
I believe quite a lot because I was swimming in money for most of the game. My third city spawned cargo ships that traveled to Japan, Sweden and City States.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
My first couple of spies allowed me to quickly catch up on science. Later I was considerably ahead in tech and I barely used them defensively and to influence a couple of resistant City States.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The map made my victory quite easy (although the last half of the game run pretty slow in my machine). First I had room enough for a wide empire, then I could easily conquest my continent while keeping good relationships with most of the Civs in other continents.
The desert at the capital: I made sure to get Petra, after that, and with the special improvement that was a holy good starting location.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I use to play at this difficulty level, thus I just made my normal play.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Liberty until having a settler, then Honor until finish with a detour on the Tradition opener because there was so much land to claim between my cities. Afterwards full Patronage, then full Rationalism and a bunch of Freedom ideologies.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
I beelined Petra. After that, nothing special, really.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Huge maps are cumbersome. Made my game last forever.

 

Domination victory 1882AD. Was expecting an earlier win based on conquering home continent surprisingly early and launching large fleets of units over seas, but took a while to get Madrid

- How useful was your UA?
I was short on gold most of the time due to lots of units, but the UA presumably made this less of a problem than it would otherwise have been.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Stole a couple of techs, had many more stolen off me, so would have been useful to put a counter-spy in my capital sooner.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Having opponents on multiple continents including some far away made domination victory slow and time consuming, bu satisfying to get there in the end.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I'm pretty stuck in a rut with being a warmonger and did what I normally do.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Liberalism then Tradition then Rationalism. Freedom because most culturally influential opponent had it, but in hindsight as I conquered happiness was a problem and taking Order might have been more helpful.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
The bottom half of the tree for military units.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Enjoyed, thanks game organisers

 

Turn 360/1 (1940/1) diplo. Q's out of order:
- What did you think of the map and settings?
Oh boy... one of the most frustrating I've played, esp at Emperor. It was like it was designed to have you make the wrong decisions. First... maybe domination, but started to early. then went to diplo, only to be just a few $ short of being able to win on the first round. Still, interesting.

Did quickly take the Mayan capital (Borboudir, something else) to keep the religious pressure off, and before meeting most of the players. Had done a 2 worker steal from him earlier for the workers and to slow him down.

The AIs were fighting each other throughout the game, with Japan taking the entire continent. Isabella also ran pretty far out - both taking Aristocracy for 2nd and 3rd picks (after Morocco). Inca made enemies by building some huge number of cities. Poor Celts, Babylon and Portugal were abused for thousands of years. [All others but Siam took order, but I'd done world ideology=Freedom early enough that it wasn't fought, so was far happier than anyone else all endgame - good considering all the tourism that Spain built up - 3x]

Japan was science leader until ~late industrial (+/-)

All in all, felt that I played abysmally in many things - city placement, timing, strategy, ...only things good were [] keeping Japan and Spain off me with only a small army [] did much better on happiness than normal.

- How useful was your UA?
Some - but used internal trade routes at first. Later, not quite enough.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Some. But bulbed from Atomic to Globalization very quickly and move them all to diplomats.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Should have gone straight science.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Didn't try for any wonders (except 1 turn for Petra) anywhere near the start.
Found it harder than most immortal games due to my bad choices.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Tradition(all), Patronage:2 (couldn't policy save as someone had said you could), Freedom (most), Patronage: 1, Freedom: finish; Commerce: 2

- What techs did you prioritize ?
By end, Globalization, though had enough $ the 2nd vote, that probably didn't need it.


Tidbit: never propose Standing Army tax. Even those AIs with a minuscule army will vote against it, even if it would hurt their aggressive neighbors far more.

 

Retired in 1909 AD.

Was a bit behind the curve.
Played a peaceful game with a locally strong religion, 4 cities.

But wasn't able to catch up in tech especially with Babylon.
Still Diplo might have worked out, but I am not so sure.

Despite doing nothing aggressive, Inca denounced me and Spain and them then declared war, which was when I retired...