TSG184 After Action

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG184 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?
 
Score loss on t200. Base score 614.

This was sensationally unpleasant. The GotM team definitely knows how to get me out of my comfort zone. ;) Thank you!

This was a very straightforward military game. Monty came dancing with about 15-20 units already about t60, when I had my 3 core cities and the development was work in progress. Luckily I had beelined for Construction and repelled the attack. However, because I genuinely hate starting next to Monty, I beelined for Machinery and managed to kill him on t136. I was of course behind in development so for the rest of the game I was at war with Napoleon (and he also bribed Bismarck to join the fun). Napoleon managed 11 cities (and I killed about 27 million french settlers) but he was still beaten to the win by Bismarck (score 1251). At the end I had my 3 core cities plus Tenochtitlan.

How useful was your UA?

Not at all. I only made contact with Hong Kong.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

I got a couple of techs from Paris.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

The map was fine, but the starting position was very weak for defensive purposes. Bismarck had my capital down to red once.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

I did take 2 points in Piety to ensure a religion. With the starting position at hand, I would not have gone for a religion on deity.

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

Piety 2, full Tradition and Rationalism opener. Only Bismarck managed to get to Ideologies.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

Bottom half of the tree out of necessity.

- What did you think of the map and settings?

The map was good and the settings as well. However, starting sandwiched between Monty and Napoleon with no other living creature in sight was very unpleasant.
 

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Retired defeated turn 82 - had build 3 cities and was starting to dream of conquering Monte with the Hoplites and Companion Cav I was starting to build, when a hoard of Jaguars came and overran me :-(
 
Retired defeated turn 82 - had build 3 cities and was starting to dream of conquering Monte with the Hoplites and Companion Cav I was starting to build, when a hoard of Jaguars came and overran me :-(

Yes, he was quite aggressive. I had 3-4 CBs, 1 Hoplite and 1 Warrior (and Walls in the city closest to him) at the time he attacked me. It still took me about 10 turns to repel the initial attack.
 
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Score Victory on T200 (1019) [though I chose to replay at one point so ...]

Wow. Very strange map. Didn't meet one city-state till the very end of the game when everyone DOWed me.

Anyway, settled in place and decided I would go just one city. My warrior wandered off to the far south and met France and I stole 2 workers from him before I peaced out.

Actually met Monty after France. He settled 2 cities and ended up right next to me. I build 5 archers and then declared war on him (~T40). His Jaguars trickled out of the jungle in ones and twos and I shot them to pieces. After about 10 turns they stopped coming (and my warrior had finally returned from collecting French slaves) so I rolled over Monty's first two cities (they just had wall strength 10 or so). By the time I got to the second one I had added 2 Catapults, and once I captured the second city I upgraded to comp bow. Monty capital fell about T80. Had burnt his two non-capital cities.

Headed south to deal with France (who had 7 cities at this point). My Grand Army at this point consisted of 5 comp bows, 2 cats and 2 hoplites. Captures and burnt the most northern city (T95) when France finished Great Wall. What a pain. Detoured around a second city and attacked Paris directly, which fell ~T110. Added 2 companions around to the army around now. Went back to the city I bypassed earlier, and captured that one. Then headed back the other way and captured the next city in line. Didn't burn either of these which was step 1 of my big mistake. Step 2 was France offered a peace treaty and gave me 3 of his 4 remaining cities ... and I kept them. I mean taking the peace was OK, I would just take his last city in 10 turns so I would actually save time especially as one of them was quite far away. This was OK but keeping the cities caused huge happiness problems. 1o turns later I took the last city (and kept it) and I couldn't really get my happiness above -10 at that point so was just fighting barb uprisings.

So I went back to the start of the French campaign and replayed it out pretty much the same way except this time I burnt down every city except Paris. France gone T132.

Hung around for 5-6 turns so I could upgrade to Crossbow (only had 4 Comp left, but two were double shot and the others close). I had sent the companions and generals ahead (left the hoplites in the motherland to fight barbarians) and they met first Venice and then the Inca. Most of my troops landed just south of the southernmost Incan city (~T150). Spend a few turns getting set-up, including getting the cats right within range. Had to promise I was just marching by but well .... Met the Ethiopians and then the Brazilians while I was setting up. I bribed the Inca to declare war on all 3 of them and gave it a few turns to get going and for the Inca to move all their units away and then attacked and took that southern city. People start getting mad at me (for breaking my promise). About T165, had to peace out with the Inca and his walls had reached 40 and I needed to get trebuchets. He was happy to do so and gave me bunch of luxury goods. Off he went to fight all his other enemies.

10 Turns later I declare war on the Inca again and a couple of turns after that Cuzco falls and I head towards the Inca city between Cuzco and Venice. I have a score of roughly 650 points now, which puts me close to the top, but the Ethiopians are still at least 100 points up. I either have to attack them or Venice (who had lots of wonders as well). It was at this point that the Ethipians messaged me and said 'let's attack Venice'. Sure I said making the whole world even madder for declaring war on a friend. Strangely enough, Brazil (who had 3 lines of red text with me) decided that this was the perfect time for a Friendship Treaty.

T183 I take that Inca city near Venice, peace out with the Inca and head towards Venice. Ethiopia had been softening them up for a while so when I showed up it didn't take that much to finish the job and capture Venice (which put me at around 950 points). All my crossbows were double shot and range 3 by now.

Venice.jpg below

At that point it was just clicking end turn to get the game over. T198, Brazil decides to backstab me and declares war. T199 Ethiopia and Germany also declare war but too little too late. Took a big happiness hit when all the trades got canceled which might have had an effect if the game had gone on a bit longer. On the other hand, I would have attacked Ethiopia right away (after bribing them to attack everyone else first) if the game was going to be longer than 200 turns.

Focussed on weapon research the whole game (got cannons right at the end). Stole 4 techs from Venice which didn't hurt. Finally met some city-states on T198 when those three declared war on me (other than 2 that Venice had taken over).

Social policies was full tradition followed by Honor (got the Exp boost and the culture from Barbs was also worth a bit).

Managed to get Desert Folklore which got me a religion but since I had burnt down almost all cities on the home continent it never amounted to much.

And that was that.

************ one week later *************

For a bit of amusement I decided to try and play out the domination win.

Venice had fallen about T190. Tried to get Ethipia to declare war on Brazil or anyone else but no deal. Brazil on the other hand (still my friend) was happy to declare war on Ethiopia. Also got the Inca to declare war on Ethiopia but never saw a unit of theirs. Perhaps still recovering from the previous war with me.

Brazil attacked pretty hard and captured one city between Rio And Addis. In the time it took to do that, I marched my units down from Venice to just outside Addis, declared war on Ethiopia and took the capital in two turns. Walls still around 30 so melted under the cannons. T198 peace out with Ethiopia.

Headed towards Brazil and declared war (who was still at war with Ethiopia). Range 3 two-shot crossbows captured the (formerly Ethiopian) city between the two capitals in one turn (Move 5 Companions still useful!) and which I burnt down.

Lots of jungle now around Rio but also hills so the Crossbows took a little longer but knocked down the walls in about 3 turns and the Companion then runs in for the capture (~T210). Rio walls were still under 40 so not much challenge.

By now I had realised that Germany was on its own little continent, so I captured 2 Brazilian coastal cities. I had recently finished the Forbidden City (only wonder I built the whole game) which helped a lot with happiness (as did burning down all those cities). Anyway, crossbows and cannons captured one coastal city in about 3 turns then the other. Burnt them both down but paused one of the long enough to buy 2 caravels for scouting Germany.

I now took a look at Germany and saw that Berlin had 80 point walls! Just a bit tougher than everything I had seen so far. Germany was also the tech leader by 6-7 techs.

Once the caravels had scouted I realised I had a problem. The whole continent was packed with German cities and units with only one little corner not yet claimed. I settled that one corner (Sparta!) bought a tile, then used two generals to steal land and now I had a position to attack. Meanwhile I had bribed the Germans to declare war on everyone else in the game .. and once more promised I was just marching my units around for civic purposes. You would think that after I broke my work to the Inca, Venetians, Ethiopians and Brazilians that Bismark might get a bit suspicious of the rather large army assembling practically inside his country but he took me at my word.

This all took a while, so by T242 I had research Artillery and Gatlings, upgraded and was ready to start.

germany_start.jpg below

Took Frankfurt the first turn, spent 3-4 rounds holding off a huge rush of German units and then just rolled my way to Berlin, spending a couple of turns to take Cologne and Hamburg along the way.

Berlin fell T257 but he certainly gave me the toughest fight since the Aztecs all those years ago.

germany_finish.jpg below

P.S. One useful strategy is to bring workers to a fight. Enemy units will almost always charge them to capture (making them easy to kill with missile while a melee unit recaptures the worker, rinse and repeat). The workers can also repair tiles for instant healing in enemy territory. Always bribe people to attack others. Even if they can't reach them it keeps them busy and makes it unlikley to attack you.

For this game, I think a single city start, rush Aztecs, rush French is still the best way to get ahead.
 

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I've played it twice. Survived to turn 200 both times but lost a score victory. Both times I settled on the gold 2 tiles to the west, and I think that was a good move. First time, I opened Pottery and started building a scout. Got a population ruin almost immediately, an upgrade to a hoplite, and my scout got a culture ruin. I found lots more ruins after that but most weren't great; those first 3 were fantastic.

My hoplite stole a worker from France while my scout met Monty and checked out the lay of his cities. Made peace with France. Settled a second city next to Grand Mesa, and started building archers and hoplites. Also built walls around Athens even tho' it was on a hill. Somewhere in there I built a shrine to see if I could get a pantheon. Turn 30 or 40-ish, Monty attacks with more units than it should have been possible to build that soon. I fought them off (leading with my city) until he retreated then was about to pursue him and take his cities when France showed up on my southern border with a carpet of doom. My cities were never in danger, but he killed a few of my units and I killed dozens of his. Since I was at war with both and there were no city states, there was nowhere to send my trade routes so I used them internally and tried not to build any useless buildings (like a second shrine) Eventually Monty offered me a luxury and a little GPT for peace and I took it, and sent him several caravans. I never did make peace with Napoleon.

Social policies were Tradition up to the free monuments, Honor up to the free general, finish Tradition and then back to Honor. For science, I beelined Machinery for crossbows, then came back and filled in Civil Service, Philosophy, etc. I figured hoplites are close enough in strength to pikes, and Athens had no river tiles.

Throughout the entire game (both times) France had the strongest military in the world. He beelined gunpowder and spammed musketeers. Sometimes I was second strongest, but always a distant second. I captured and razed 2 French cities (one of which I would like to have kept but I couldn't hold it) and I puppetted another. In my siege of Paris, I had it in the yellow briefly, but Napoleon kept settling crappy little cities just to block me and bombard my crossbows, and I'd have to waste time capturing and razing them. (which was brilliant) Dijon in the attached pic. I've razed it several times. If I puppet it, I can't hold it.

Also I was starting to lose the war of attrition; I kill his units twice as fast as he kills mine, but I couldn't protect all my veterans and he could produce new units 10 times faster than me. The last 5 or 6 turns were very unpleasant. My final score was a pathetic 433.
20190814122313_1.jpg
 

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Second time started out very similar to the first, but I skipped Honor; filled Tradition and then went into Commerce. Also I took a detour to Philosophy and built the national college on my way to Machinery, and I think I may have got to Machinery a little faster. Two scouts and a hoplite danced around a jaguar and a settler for about 20 turns while Monty was trying to forward-settle me. Eventually he declared war and killed one of those scouts and I stole the settler, which I thought was a fair trade :) Not getting his 3rd city up meant his army was smaller when he attacked and he didn't have an operating base right on my borders. I captured and puppetted both his cities, then settled 2 more cities of my own to grab 2 more unique luxuries and get a coastal city. Stayed friendly with France the whole game which might have been a mistake, and ended up almost caught up in tech and middle-of-the-pack scorewise. But if I had DOW'd France it would probably just been a quagmire again.

I might try it one more time and go straight Honor; 2 on the right then 2 on the left (faster culture that way) then Professional Army for the finisher.
 
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Turn 200, Time Victory (1163).

1. How useful was your UA? - Very useful as always, although I wished I could have used it more.
2. Did you use spying to your advantage? - Yes, I did. I spied on Germany first and later on the Inca.
3. Did the map type help or hinder victory and how? - It slowed me down since I did only plant one coastal city which was not good. Also the lack of CS's on the island was also something that made things more difficult.
4. How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions? - I felt more confident in my decisions, since I'm used on playing on Deity. It felt like a huge relief that it was only on Immortal. I do not think I would have won on Deity.
5. What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose? - I went Liberty 2 (Left), Honor 0, then Liberty 5, Commerce 1 (Left), Exploration 0, then Honor 1 (Right). - I didn't get an Ideology, nor did any of the AI's.
6. What techs did you prioritize? - Bronze Working and Construction.
7. What did you think of the map and settings? - The map was OK. It was pretty rough to race against the clock. I have never played a challenge like this before.

I recorded the game and I will upload the game to my channel if anyone is interested. (I have the same name on Youtube). - I will upload it tomorrow when the time runs out.
 

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Turn 200, Time Victory (1163).

1. How useful was your UA? - Very useful as always, although I wished I could have used it more.
2. Did you use spying to your advantage? - Yes, I did. I spied on Germany first and later on the Inca.
3. Did the map type help or hinder victory and how? - It slowed me down since I did only plant one coastal city which was not good. Also the lack of CS's on the island was also something that made things more difficult.
4. How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions? - I felt more confident in my decisions, since I'm used on playing on Deity. It felt like a huge relief that it was only on Immortal. I do not think I would have won on Deity.
5. What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose? - I went Liberty 2 (Left), Honor 0, then Liberty 5, Commerce 1 (Left), Exploration 0, then Honor 1 (Right). - I didn't get an Ideology, nor did any of the AI's.
6. What techs did you prioritize? - Bronze Working and Construction.
7. What did you think of the map and settings? - The map was OK. It was pretty rough to race against the clock. I have never played a challenge like this before.

I recorded the game and I will upload the game to my channel if anyone is interested. (I have the same name on Youtube). - I will upload it tomorrow when

I look forward to your video, but I'm going to try Liberty myself first. Tried Honor opener last night, and it's strong but not fast enough. I'm curious about the UA being "very useful". I didn't get any use of it at all in any of my games. (got lots of use of UUs) OTOH my coastal city was founded too late to ever build a navy. (there are spots with unique luxuries for at least 3 coastal cities in the northern half of the continent. One good one is probably all you need)
 
I look forward to your video, but I'm going to try Liberty myself first. Tried Honor opener last night, and it's strong but not fast enough. I'm curious about the UA being "very useful". I didn't get any use of it at all in any of my games. (got lots of use of UUs) OTOH my coastal city was founded too late to ever build a navy. (there are spots with unique luxuries for at least 3 coastal cities in the northern half of the continent. One good one is probably all you need)

Cool, I think I'm allowed to post it after midnight if I'm correct? I got it uploaded, but it's on private right now.

Yes, you should go Liberty in this game. If you go full Liberty I think you will do well. As you said, Honor is not fast enough. It's OK if you put a couple of points in it, but the important thing in this game is to fill up Liberty. I put a point in Honor in the middle of filling up Liberty and that was OK. I got the Oracle so it was "free" policy anyways. The UA was only useful once, but it saved me. I needed the happiness, but more importantly I needed that CS to make my attack easier. I struggled with money this game so I couldn't really afford to be anyone except Greece (My economy was not going to allow me to bribe a CS several times to keep it as an ally.)

You don't really need a navy to attack Germany, but of course it makes things easier. If you can get out some Frigates, you can probably wipe off Brazil without problems. I don't know much about the Inca since I never went towards that part of my island to scout his island properly. I had some Galleass who took some hits from Germany and only the last five turns or so I had two Frigates. I had some mistakes on this playthrough, since I felt a pressure to beat the clock.

One mistake that I made was I didn't go for the Inca, but he had the Great Wall in my game. I don't know if any of his cities were coastal or anything. Germany was the closest and he did good in my game so I figured if I kill him I will win the game.

You should make use of both of your UU. They are both really strong. With them you will kill both the Aztek and the French (At least take their Capital). There is no reason to try and be peaceful with them. They are both highly aggressive and your starting spot makes you a victim if you don't act. You probably can't bribe any of them to attack the other. I went Bronze Working almost immediately to get some Hoplites up. So my tip is to war them both at the same time. With your UU this is possible. Just make sure you have Composite Bowman and you will conquer them both.

The money will be an issue but you raze cities, sell buildings, plunder farms ect.. you will manage. Later on you probably meet some of your other AI's in the game and you can get money from there. I made peace with the Frence for a while, just so he could give me some money. At that time my units could breath who were fighting the French and I could kill off the Aztek. Later on I took more of the French cities and left him with only one left. The Inca settled next to him so I wanted a buffet zone.
 
Looking forward to this video (I think submissions are closed, so I guess it is fine to put it online...)

I was struggling with this one and didn't finish it on time, but I guess (played until about turn 155 or so) I would have lost on score until turn 200.

Stole a worker from Aztecs, moved back my units a little to wait for his first wave to kill them off...
... but that wave never came. Maybe I underestimated his amount of units...

At some point I bribed France to declare war, which was a big mistake as I didn't notice that I sold luxuries that I needed...
that set me back so I was kind of too slow and well, then I didn't have enough time...

I am not good at 'warmongering' anyway...
 
I watched the video (sped it up to 1.25 speed) and it was very informative. It never occurred to me to steal 3 workers from France! (sometimes I can just get one; once I managed to get 4 but had to make peace immediately to escape with that last one) Monty is a wildcard; sometimes he is in my face with 15 or 20 units by turn 50. Other times I have to DOW him turn 65 or so to get the ball rolling. His cities never have any buildings to sell, all he builds are settlers and military (maybe monuments, since they are almost always destroyed on capture)
 
Looking forward to this video (I think submissions are closed, so I guess it is fine to put it online...)

I was struggling with this one and didn't finish it on time, but I guess (played until about turn 155 or so) I would have lost on score until turn 200.

Stole a worker from Aztecs, moved back my units a little to wait for his first wave to kill them off...
... but that wave never came. Maybe I underestimated his amount of units...

At some point I bribed France to declare war, which was a big mistake as I didn't notice that I sold luxuries that I needed...
that set me back so I was kind of too slow and well, then I didn't have enough time...

I am not good at 'warmongering' anyway...

Yes, I have put up the game on Youtube. You can find it there. Also I was able to submit my score. (I pm:ed a Mod, so I'm happy about that.)

Well... if you're not good at warmongering I think this challenge will be incredibly tough for you. You probably will be attack by at least one of them and I can't see how you win still manage to win a Time Victory and fend one or both of them off. Germany is isolated and Inca can easily kill off Inca. You probably don't have this information until at least more than half of the game has finished and you're only got one chance of this.

I suppose now that we have all the information and the game has been close I could try for a peaceful victory. That would be a real challenge.

Yeah, that's the thing. You need to bribe them to be in war with each other and probably not cheap nor effective. Sooner or later they will peace out and one of them will go for you instead. Your land is so incredible easy to attack so you're screwed if don't have good units to defend anyways.

I watched the video (sped it up to 1.25 speed) and it was very informative. It never occurred to me to steal 3 workers from France! (sometimes I can just get one; once I managed to get 4 but had to make peace immediately to escape with that last one) Monty is a wildcard; sometimes he is in my face with 15 or 20 units by turn 50. Other times I have to DOW him turn 65 or so to get the ball rolling. His cities never have any buildings to sell, all he builds are settlers and military (maybe monuments, since they are almost always destroyed on capture)

Thank you. I appreciate the good feedback. I will upload more videos and I will probably make the Game of the Month challenge a regular thing.

Yeah, Monty focus on military and not wonders so his cities are going to be garbage. As you can see none of them had built any wonders. I took Paris very early on, but I was still feeling kind of slightly pissed off about that. There is no reason for Aztec not to have build one single wonder. Then again I declared war on them pretty early on which makes them focus even more on military units.
 
You can bribe either one of them (whichever is stronger at the moment) to declare war on the other pretty cheap. But only once, and they don't really fight because you are in the middle. They just take your money and wait 10 or 15 turns and peace-out. It doesn't even seem to make them hate each other. It still gives you 10 or 15 turns to prepare if you're not ready for war yet.

I have found that I always have to deal with Monty first, and while I'm doing that, Napoleon is getting strong. I was amazed that you were able to cripple France before dealing with The Aztecs. Stealing all those workers doesn't seem to set him back much, maybe because at immortal the AI's get workers for free or something. Stealing settlers hurts, but I haven't been able to do that much with France. I usually manage to grab a few Aztec settlers towards the end of that war.

I still can't win in 200 turns, but I'm getting close. I've also spent way too many hours on this, so gonna set it aside for a bit :)
 
Thank you for the video, bobbobbybobbob!

Interesting to see that you even can steal several workers from France. I do worker stealing when seeing a worker early, but I wouldn't have expected you could sit around with the warrior...well, never tried it on such a difficulty...

And interesting to see that you declare war on Germany without having many units on their island or close.
I wouldn't have tried that on immortal, because I would have expected that my units would have been killed too fast...

Well, my units surely would have been killed too fast, because I would have moved them in a different way.
Founding a city there is clever, but it is a risk, I probably wouldn't have taken.

I guess, I learned something... maybe I'll give this one another try if I find the time.
 
You can bribe either one of them (whichever is stronger at the moment) to declare war on the other pretty cheap. But only once, and they don't really fight because you are in the middle. They just take your money and wait 10 or 15 turns and peace-out. It doesn't even seem to make them hate each other. It still gives you 10 or 15 turns to prepare if you're not ready for war yet.

You're giving them free money. Ok. I get it. If you need 10 turns it's acceptable I suppose.. I still believe it's more efficant to just kill them off then giving them more time. Both your UUs comes in early, so I don't understand why you woudn't be able to ready to fight? Also they do not hate each other since they are not really truly at war. They will not take each other cities and they probably both desires your land. I woudn't be suprised if after the bribe it will lead to them both DOW you. You don't really want to fight the French with their UU. It's a pretty strong unit that can withstand a couple of hits...

I have found that I always have to deal with Monty first, and while I'm doing that, Napoleon is getting strong. I was amazed that you were able to cripple France before dealing with The Aztecs. Stealing all those workers doesn't seem to set him back much, maybe because at immortal the AI's get workers for free or something.

I took three workers from the French. I believe they start with two workers, three warriors, one scout and a bunch of Techs. Since I stole his workers he needs to make new ones which sets him back. I also applied pressure towards his land quite early and I took Paris. When they lose so many units and their capital they will be quite crippled. It doesn't matter if they start with bonuses if you take them away.

Aztek were not a huge deal because I believe the lands he had was not very good (not a lot of production, jungle is slow) and he also went Honor which is slow. The AI wants to spam their UU and the Aztek one is not a hard unit to deal with if you have Composite Bowmans.
Stealing settlers hurts, but I haven't been able to do that much with France. I usually manage to grab a few Aztec settlers towards the end of that war.

You need to take cities to hurt them. If they have their capital and some core cities it will not do them to much harm if you steal a settler.

I still can't win in 200 turns, but I'm getting close. I've also spent way too many hours on this, so gonna set it aside for a bit :)

Keep going! You need to be more aggressive. Build units and dominate your neighbors! You will win eventually.

Thank you for the video, bobbobbybobbob!

Interesting to see that you even can steal several workers from France. I do worker stealing when seeing a worker early, but I wouldn't have expected you could sit around with the warrior...well, never tried it on such a difficulty...

Thank you!

Why not? ..Well I hope you will try it out! It worked out great for me, right? With that kind of land with everything is open, you just grab whatever you like!

And interesting to see that you declare war on Germany without having many units on their island or close.
I wouldn't have tried that on immortal, because I would have expected that my units would have been killed too fast....

Yeah that was probably not the best war I fought, but I got the victory. I should have perhaps settled the city before the assualt but I didn't wanna waste anytime. Sometimes you need to settle a city like that.. Same goes with the Great Wall for example. With Liberity you can afford it real easy and also.. Yeah I get one lousy city but I conquered all his lands. I do not think I would be able to do it if I have not settle that lousy city. Another choice would have been to just landed more of my units on his island, but it is what it is. I knew I would beat him down, but it sure was ugly.

You need to be more confident in your ability to play. If you do not have the mentally nor the ability you will not win. I lost many units, but I tried to keep it calm. Sometimes you will lose many units like I did, but it is necessary.

Founding a city there is clever, but it is a risk, I probably wouldn't have taken.

Thank you. You need to be more bold!

I guess, I learned something... maybe I'll give this one another try if I find the time.

That's great! It makes me feel good if I can help another player! I will keep doing these challanges and I hope that you both will complete this one!

Good luck!
 
You're giving them free money. Ok. I get it. If you need 10 turns it's acceptable I suppose.. I still believe it's more efficant to just kill them off then giving them more time. Both your UUs comes in early, so I don't understand why you woudn't be able to ready to fight? Also they do not hate each other since they are not really truly at war. They will not take each other cities and they probably both desires your land. I woudn't be suprised if after the bribe it will lead to them both DOW you. You don't really want to fight the French with their UU. It's a pretty strong unit that can withstand a couple of hits...

I was agreeing with you. :) You *can* bribe one of them to attack the other, but it doesn't help anything; you just waste a luxury and/or some gold, meanwhile time is passing. Might be worth it if they show up with an army on your borders and you're just a couple of turns away from finishing Construction. (if so, declare war as soon as you upgrade your archers, don't wait for the deal to end)
Aztek were not a huge deal because I believe the lands he had was not very good (not a lot of production, jungle is slow) and he also went Honor which is slow. The AI wants to spam their UU and the Aztek one is not a hard unit to deal with if you have Composite Bowmans.
Monty always goes Liberty in my games, and tries to settle 4 tiles from my capitol before I can do much about it. I try to block that settler until I can settle by the gems.
 
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Tried this again, and it might be winnable this time. :banana:

I stole 2 workers and 2 settlers from France, and kept harassing him and pillaging until eventually I took Paris. I don't know, turn 50 or so. I lost a few units in that war; I think usually I try too hard to preserve units when I should be using a few inexperienced melees as cannon fodder. I also don't use "heal instantly" enough, but I've been doing that more in this game. I left Napoleon with one city (a good one, actually) and made peace just so I'd have someplace to send my caravans. About that time, (I think it was turn 55) while much of my army was still in Paris, and I had lots of archers but was still researching Construction, Monty declared war. He was the tech leader and had the largest military, but I was a close second in military strength (still last in tech) and I whipped him soundly but it took a while. Used up a lot of generals to siege his cities. Statue of Zeus in Paris helped. ;) Took Monty's capital and all his other cities except one. Razed most of them. Tenochtitlan had walls and maybe even a castle so composite bows and catapults didn't do much damage per turn, but they did enough eventually. A few pikes would have really helped but I didn't have Civil Service yet so I used hoplites with cover promotions.

Right now it's almost turn 150. Monty has been spamming settlers and rebuilding but I don't think he's much of a threat. France only has 2 cities. I've settled another city of my own on the coast (on the silver) so I can build a few ships, got my economy and science under control, and I've scouted-out Germany trying to figure out how to take Berlin in the time remaining. Venice is the only other civ that I have met. Germany has the largest military right now, and Berlin is 40 strong. I might need to take some of his weaker cities first (capturing with a companion or a knight so it can step back out the same turn) and kill his units when they try to recapture. Pretty sure I'll need cannons to take Berlin, but I have trebs now and that should be enough for his other cities but it will be messy.
 
Tried this again, and it might be winnable this time. :banana:

I stole 2 workers and 2 settlers from France, and kept harassing him and pillaging until eventually I took Paris. I don't know, turn 50 or so. I lost a few units in that war; I think usually I try too hard to preserve units when I should be using a few inexperienced melees as cannon fodder. I also don't use "heal instantly" enough, but I've been doing that more in this game. I left Napoleon with one city (a good one, actually) and made peace just so I'd have someplace to send my caravans. About that time, (I think it was turn 55) while much of my army was still in Paris, and I had lots of archers but was still researching Construction, Monty declared war. He was the tech leader and had the largest military, but I was a close second in military strength (still last in tech) and I whipped him soundly but it took a while. Used up a lot of generals to siege his cities. Statue of Zeus in Paris helped. ;) Took Monty's capital and all his other cities except one. Razed most of them. Tenochtitlan had walls and maybe even a castle so composite bows and catapults didn't do much damage per turn, but they did enough eventually. A few pikes would have really helped but I didn't have Civil Service yet so I used hoplites with cover promotions.

Right now it's almost turn 150. Monty has been spamming settlers and rebuilding but I don't think he's much of a threat. France only has 2 cities. I've settled another city of my own on the coast (on the silver) so I can build a few ships, got my economy and science under control, and I've scouted-out Germany trying to figure out how to take Berlin in the time remaining. Venice is the only other civ that I have met. Germany has the largest military right now, and Berlin is 40 strong. I might need to take some of his weaker cities first (capturing with a companion or a knight so it can step back out the same turn) and kill his units when they try to recapture. Pretty sure I'll need cannons to take Berlin, but I have trebs now and that should be enough for his other cities but it will be messy.

Sounds promising!

I am looking forward to your next post when you say that you conquered Berlin and the rest of Germany to win the game!
 
I found the score challenge in TSG189 quite interesting, so I thought I'd play this one as well. This one is a much more challenging game. I won with 2656 points in the end, using the same Liberty - Honor happiness - Aristocracy build as in 189. Didn't make it to ideologies this time as I didn't build a single university.

Tradition opener first, then full Liberty. I actually chose a Great Prophet as my Liberty finisher to get a quick enhance, as faith per turn was quite low at the time (gold/silver pantheon, I believe I had third religion but it might've been the first enhance). My other beliefs were +2 gold per city, +2 happy from Temples and +1 happy from Shrines, 25% faster spread.

Conquest order:
1st army: Aztec -> France -> Inca -> Ethiopia -> Venice -> Brazil
2nd army: Germany -> Ethiopia -> Brazil

Immortal requires you to invest a lot more into units, I'm pretty sure I had 3 times as many crossbows as I had in TSG189. Continents Plus is another obstacle, the lack of easy to access CSs and the need for Astronomy really delays your progress. I couldn't manage to take Pedro's capital in time, all his stupid unimproved jungles really slowed me down, and on turn ~190 I took 2 cities in a peace deal instead. Double-citadelled him out of spite and focused on trying to optimize the last 10 turns. Perhaps I should've invested into a navy here as well to take some of those CSs, conquest with Frigates is quick and easy.

I still had excess happiness here in the end, which in this case is a bad sign and simply means I didn't settle enough cities. Still had a lot of fun though, I like these 200 or 250 turn score victories. On Immortal it sort of feels like a total domination game with score being a secondary goal though.
 

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