TSG188 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG188 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?​

 

[BananaGod]

Well,I had won this game at 145 turns,by the sacred site of piety,used the method of Qieshu（切术）.Qie(切) means Castration,why is it called Qieshu? It's been a few years ago.At the beginning of BNW,one player summed up a method that depends on religious by restrict the development of cities,and claim to fit all winning ways,mislead many new players,has been denounced by other senior players.So he made a bet,to castrate his genitals when he lost.He was defeated three times in a row,of course, he didn't castrate his genitals,but this method is called Qieshu.
Qieshu is a way to restrict the development of cities and obtain strong religions.
Qieshu is the fastest way to win a cultural victory,it just depends on how strong your initial religious resources are.Few policies are needed,just 5.
Next Foxsiad will show a way to win with Futurism.

 

[zxcvbob]

I wondered if anyone would finish this in less than 300 turns. I was sick this weekend, and spent most of my time in bed drinking hot tea, coughing, and playing Civ.

My first attempt (I gave up at about turn 430 when it was obvious I would win a cultural victory eventually but the time was pathetic) I tried Sacred Sites, thinking that wouldn't quite be enough but would get me a head start, then Futurism would quickly put it over the top. So I rushed Stonehenge and got a strong religion but only one building. I kept going but it was too slow and a boring game.

Second attempt I also did Piety mixed with Honor, but took Jesuit Education for my reformation belief, and was focusing on science to get to ideology as fast as possible (Futurism again) and then rush to Internet. That wasn't really working so I quit around turn 250.

Then I realized "I'm Attila the Freakin' Hun, I need to act like it!" In the earlier attempts I captured Seoul very quickly but then played peacefully after that, using my horse archers to kill barbs and my extra production from pastures to quickly build wonders. This time I did build a shrine eventually (and actually got a religion) but just built horse archers and terrorized the world. It was a lot more fun! I was nice to the city states (after the first round of demanding tribute to get my economy going) and annihilated the other civs. Razed almost all the cities and puppeted all the capitals except Seoul. I'm still playing that game, and it's going well except the barbarians are really annoying. There is so much open land they are running wild and I have to leave a couple of units behind at each city to defend against them. When I got to Industrialization, I annexed Madrid so I'd have 3 cities for factories (I never settled a single city myself except for my capital) And that's where I am now, a little past turn 200. I will kill everybody except one or two civs, and hobble them, then win a mix of Futurism and late-game concert tours. It's working, but I don't know if I'll finish by turn 300. Contrary to the announcement there is not a 300 turn limit on the game, but I'm still keeping that as a goal; kind of a soft-limit.

I'll look at Banana's save file after I finish this play thru.

 

[choraltrickster]

Game:Civ5 GOTM 188
Date submitted:2019-11-19 01:35:52
Reference number:36660
Your name:choraltrickster
Game status:Culture Victory
Game date:1987AD
Turns played:407
Base score:3883
Final score:4793
Time played:9:06:00
I don't play with the skill and efficiency that most of you do, but this was a lot of fun. I basically set out to win my culture victory via domination and ended up winning Culture Victory on turn 406 with all foes reduced to one city except Austria, who I had yet to go to war with. I ended with 37 cities and 37 wonders.

Capital conquests: Seoul (t129), Constantinople (t153), Mecca (t290), Honolulu (t309), Washington (t337), Madrid (t348), Jakarta (t363), Assur (t392).

Built Wonders:
Temple of Artemis (t42); Hanging Gardens (t98); Pyramids (t109); Notre Dame (t156); Sistine Chapel (t243); Porcelain Tower (t298); Neuchwanstein (t362); Christo Redentor (t404);

Pantheon: Goddess of the Hunt (t22); Religion: Tithe & Feed the World (t148);

How useful was your UA?
Unique units were tremendously useful and led to the slaughter of Seoul and Constantinople. I razed a few cities and benefited from the UA.

Did you use spying to your advantage?
I only stole one or two techs and then ended up in the lead, moving all spies to defense. I've never killed so many spies!

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The terrain made going to war challenging, with Honolulu, Jakarta, and Assur behind mountain passes and Constantinople isolated behind city states and jungle.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I built a few unnecessary wonders because I thought I had enough of a jump on the AI to do so.

What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Opened Tradition, Filled Liberty (taking Trad-Aristocracy somewhere along the way), Filled Commerce (opened Rationalism and Patronage on the way), Order, Filled Aesthetics

What techs did you prioritize ?
Basically bee-lined dominant units, then bee-lined science techs to catch up (ie: XBows, Education), repeat

What did you think of the map and settings?
I like that the 300 turn limit wasn't actually enabled. I would rather play at my own pace, but be challenged. The difficulty was a little too easy for me to be put in any challenging positions along the way (though I fully acknowledge I didn't drive to the win condition with much efficiency). I'd love to have every game here be set to Immortal/Standard/Standard, with one specified win condition.

Confession: I reloaded a few times out of habit. Nothing totally game changing... hard habit to break.

 

[foxsaid]

I know i am not good at war, but this time it is necessary. so I waste much time to control my Unique units just for a good battle result. at last, most of them die after Jakarta. What millions died that Caesar might be great!
As BananaGod said, I choose Futurismat and finish in 167. and I trust it could be a little quick, but could not be quicker than Sacred Sites. Here is my way: Writing to Great Library-Philosophy(free) to National College-three Settlers and Filled Tradition-Education to University-Astronomy to four Caravel, finally two Great Science to Scientific Theory and Electricity-Oxford to Radio and get Futurismat and Universal Healthcare. then get 8 Great People as quick as possible:3 from cities, 4 from Wonders and 1 from Artistic Genius in Aesthetics.

How useful was your UA?
Production is useful, and Unique units are strong and time-consuming.

Did you use spying to your advantage?
I kill 4 foreign spies in a same turn.

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
no religious resources, and Pasture is a little.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It makes 2000 Tourism enough to win.

What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Filled Tradition-Organized Religion in Piety-Secularism in Rationalism(Oracle)-Artistic Genius in Aesthetics-Futurismat and Universal Healthcare in Autocracy(free)

What techs did you prioritize
Writing-Calendar-Philosophy(free)-The Wheel-Bronze Working-Engineering-Horseback Riding-Civil Service-Education-Astronomy-Printing Press-Architecture-Radio

What did you think of the map and settings?
there are only mountains in my eyes. Caravel is useful

 

[foxsaid]

If it is lv6 or higher, my way will lose

 

[BananaGod]

Here is a saves file show how to use Qieshu to win the cultural victory of level 8 Island Map, Had won at 207 turns. 59 cities built, sold 3 at last, average 2 people per city.
Map size: large
Difficulty: 8
Civilization: Indonesia

By the way, there were some ones won the TSG188 before 130 turns, combined with this Indonesia map, We analyze that if open the Library-left-1(+1 production) first will win quickly

 

[zxcvbob]

I know i am not good at war, but this time it is necessary. so I waste much time to control my Unique units just for a good battle result. at last, most of them die after Jakarta. What millions died that Caesar might be great!
As BananaGod said, I choose Futurismat and finish in 167. and I trust it could be a little quick, but could not be quicker than Sacred Sites. Here is my way: Writing to Great Library-Philosophy(free) to National College-three Settlers and Filled Tradition-Education to University-Astronomy to four Caravel, finally two Great Science to Scientific Theory and Electricity-Oxford to Radio and get Futurismat and Universal Healthcare. then get 8 Great People as quick as possible:3 from cities, 4 from Wonders and 1 from Artistic Genius in Aesthetics.

I am amazed that you were able to get Great Library with this start. It has pretty good production, but not great like that last GOTM, also at King level the AI's get some advantages -- and at least one of them always goes all-in to build the GL. While you were building GL, your horse archers could have been conquering Korea and Arabia and gaining the experience needed to push farther east before they go obsolete. But you did a lot better than me so I can't criticize. Well done!

 

[vadalaz]

T117 Sacred Sites with tundra pantheon, Liberty settler first then Piety. Not a single AI went Tradition, Assyria was the culture leader with just 843 culture. Had to reload once because of the glitch when you can't end the turn after gifting a city to the AI without selecting production first.

 

[zxcvbob]

T117 Sacred Sites with tundra pantheon, Liberty settler first then Piety. Not a single AI went Tradition, Assyria was the culture leader with just 843 culture. Had to reload once because of the glitch when you can't end the turn after gifting a city to the AI without selecting production first.

Thank-you! I've never been able to get the Sacred Sites thing to work; I can get it to almost work but then a couple of the AI's pull ahead in culture and even Futurism isn't enough to catch them. I just played this game and did the Liberty(2)->Piety thing (Stone Circles pantheon) and it worked! Culture victory on turn 187. I had 18 cities with pagodas and cathedrals in each one. When it was getting close to the end, I sold a city to Assyria for open borders and then sent it a trade route (would have been smarter to sell a city without the buildings.) His culture was so high it still took a while. I finished Liberty and took a musician for the finisher, but then got the culture victory w/o it just as the musician was setting-up for a concert.

The key was locking the population at 3 or less in all the cities except the capital (I think it was locked at 5) so I could settle a few more cities without too much unhappiness. I locked most of them at 2 unless they had really good tiles to work. I'd never thought of that. And even a snow city can support one pop.

 

[socralynnek]

Retired on turn 301. I am pretty sure, I will win this eventually, but I still have to take out Assyria and Austria for that and I don't have the time for that.

Didn't think that with the Huns and that start location getting to Sacred Sites early enough would be possible.
So I went the expand a little, then start conquering a little, rely on late game tourism path.
I probably should have started conquering earlier...

I will try if I can pull off the sacred sites, spam small cities thing off on this map.

 

[socralynnek]

@foxsaid, when did you start going to war?
Early on?
Which cities did you keep?
Only capitals, or did you even avoid taking the capitals?

 

[FallingTeepee]

Well, that was fun! I didn't see the 300 turn limit until well after I had passed it. It was great to be forced into having to understand tourism. I feel like I'm getting the hang of it and would have point won the game.

I've gone back to try other GOTM save files but now they aren't appearing after dropping them in the save file location. I'm playing on a Macbook so if anyone has any tips on how to resolve this it would be much appreciated.

 

[zxcvbob]

@FallingTeepee: you probably just need to move the downloaded file to wherever Civ stores game saves on a Mac. (I put them in ~\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\single\quick on PC) HTH

 

[socralynnek]

Played again, focussing on an early shrine and Stonehenge.

The same turn I finished Oracle to get the Reformation belief, Spain added Sacred Sites to its religion...
... so I went back 5 turns to shape off one turn of building Oracle to get it myself.

I guess, I should have focussed on Oracle a little earlier anyway.
By then (about turn 105), in my game the culture leader Arabia already had 1000 culture points.

This is the reason why it then took until turn 176 to win

Surely I could have shaped off some turns, for going below 150 turns, there are probably still more things I would need to improve...

 

[foxsaid]

@foxsaid, when did you start going to war?
Early on?
Which cities did you keep?
Only capitals, or did you even avoid taking the capitals?

Sorry for late. December is busy so that I have to give up 189. I start going to war when I meet Korea of course. but I try to attack city after cleaning barbarian very late. I keep Seoul, and I have to take Jakarta at any cost just to destroy Indonesia, who has most culture points to me. withou them, I didn't attack any city. Unique units is strong enough to make your enemy surrender their second citys and City-state surrender their money voluntarily.

 

[socralynnek]

Thanks for the answer!
The combination of warmongering and trying to keep research rate high enough to reach the needed techs for ideology (futurism) tourism without sacred sites, seems to be something I didn't do good enough in my first try.
That is why I am asking...

So it seems you went to war earlier than me... I was thinking that I should grow peacefully a little more to have more research, but with careful management of happiness, I might/should go to war earlier if trying that way...