TSG189 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG189 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?​

 

[zxcvbob]

I lost this one. Persia (peacefully) ran away with the game. He had 17 cities and almost as many wonders as me. I came in second with 6 cities, a strong religion, and more wonders. Not sure what could have been done about it; Darius was too far away to wage war. And he beat me to several wonders by one or two turns. Maybe start a proxy war with Poland and Russia? About turn 200 I declared war on Poland, and it took a while but I captured Warsaw, but it only had 2 wonders so it wasn't enough points to close the gap. Didn't even close it very much, and Austria was gaining on me by marrying city states.

I tried Tradition and Liberty. I took the Tradition opener, then left side of Liberty for the extra hammers and the free settler. I built both Hanging Gardens and Pyramids. I was not going to take any right-side Liberty policies, but I did not unlock Rationalism in time so I also took the free worker. Then several policies in Rationalism, and I was just about to pick an ideology when time ran out.

Spies didn't do much this game. I put my first spy in Rome and leveled him up to Special Agent and then moved him to a CS. Then put my second spy in Rome to do the same.

 

[zxcvbob]

Played it a second time. This time I won, but look how close the top 3 scores are. Tradition, Commerce, Rationalism, Freedom (but just picked Freedom a couple of turns ago so it really hasn't affected much yet) The two main differences this time were: Poland beat Persia to Chichen Itza, and I declared joint war on Persia a couple of times (but didn't really fight much) just to keep him distracted. The wars almost backfired when Darius captured Moscow, but Catherine managed to recapture and hold it.

I was friendly with everybody; even Persia between wars. But Austria was starting to get belligerent near the end. If the game had gone on much longer I would have ended up in a real war with Austria, and I'm not sure which of us would start it.

 

[Nizef]

Game won with 1205 points

- How useful was your UA/UU?
Rome´s UA is one of the best and it made everything easier in this game as well. I didn´t build a single Legion nor Ballista.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Only defending. Killed 10-15 foreign spies.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
I was thinking about a Dom style of play before I started, but after scouting I realized that this was not especially Dom friendly. I took a couple of cities from Poland but that was it. My religion had Pagodas and Cathedrals so I didn´t want his prophets-of-false around my cities!

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I went 3 city NC and added two more afterwards and the last two expansions were not utilized to their full potential. Sloppy play in other words.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
The billion dollar question was Tradition or Liberty. I went Tradition because of the lack of luxuries for wider play. So: full Tradition- Honor 1- Commerce 2- Rationalism 3 and Order 3.
- What techs did you prioritize ?
I only really beelined for Education and Navigation.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Starting location -> SIP with mediocre expectations but after discovering key techs the capital was good, Slow start -> annoying but it seems to be a theme in GotM , Lack of luxuries -> really annoying, Subcontinent all to myself -> not a good thing, Crazy map for being Pangaea -> kind of hilarious, Goody huts included -> can´t give enough praise. Thank you!
It is good to play only for score/Time VC once in a while and this game was OK for that purpose. Maybe 250 turns and Emperor is a little on the short side. I like to go wide with Rome though, and got frustrated when I realized what land I had to work with. With another civ my expectations would have been different and maybe resulted in a more enjoyable experience.
As usual: Thank you for keeping GotM going!

 

[foxsaid]

it is surprised for me that nobody choose Exploration. I think it has two benefits. Naval Tradition is a strong Happiness Social Policies in game. and Rome's UA makes it stronger at first. Close Exploration can make you see Hidden Antiquity Sites,which has a lot of point to win. I have join in this game, and get 10 city which is built by myself. Still need time to complete. Of course, Bananagod will pass me as before, I can't wait to see his points

 

[vadalaz]

Won with 6223 points. This one took a while... Not very happy with how I played. Even with the strategy I chose there was still a lot of room for improvement, e.g. I was too lazy to bother with Archaeologists (each artifact is 4 points) or to kill the city-states on the last turn. I had slow tech and culture rate (yay wide empire penalties), low gpt for a long time, and my religion wasn't the best either, Pagodas become too expensive in later eras, so temple happiness would've been better.

Early game approach was to go Aristocracy - Full Liberty - Honor to the happiness policy, and get a bunch of 10-pop cities while killing everyone. Late game: Big Ben + Mercantilism + Skyscrapers + new cities start at 4 pop, fill up the map and just buy happiness and growth buildings. Didn't manage to found all the cities I wanted, had a few more settlers in position but couldn't stay above -10 happiness to plant them.

 

[zxcvbob]

That's impressive. But Aristocracy first, then Liberty? Or did I misunderstand? I can see opening Tradition or Honor first to jump-start your culture, then Liberty, then come back to Aristocracy when you have multiple 10-pop cities. Or were you building early wonders and wanted the boost? (I think the extra hammer from Liberty is more than 15% for early cities.) I still have a lot to learn about this game

 

[vadalaz]

I can see opening Tradition or Honor first to jump-start your culture, then Liberty, then come back to Aristocracy when you have multiple 10-pop cities.

Yeah, that's what I did. If I remember correctly, the exact order was Trad opener - Liberty opener - Honor opener (built a bunch of archers early) - Finish Liberty - Honor happiness - Aristocracy.

 

[zxcvbob]

Yeah, that's what I did. If I remember correctly, the exact order was Trad opener - Liberty opener - Honor opener (built a bunch of archers early) - Finish Liberty - Honor happiness - Aristocracy.

Thanks, that makes sense. I started again to give Liberty another chance. Almost finished and I have a big lead but nothing like yours. Usually I get the first religion, but this time several of the AI's went religious fanatic and I got the 3rd or 4th religion and was also late to enhance it. Pagodas was gone (so I took Mosques) and all the other happiness beliefs were taken when I enhanced. So I didn't have the happiness to settle lots and lots of cities. Still founded about 6 or 7, plus the ones I captured.

The key seems to be settling towards Russia first, because you can pick up several more unique luxuries that way, and it sets you up to capture Moscow (she might even DOW you first and save you the trouble) There's little besides gems and sugar on the Roman subcontinent, and you can settle it later after killing Russia and hurting Persia and/or Poland.

 

[zxcvbob]

Won with 6223 points. This one took a while... Not very happy with how I played. Even with the strategy I chose there was still a lot of room for improvement, e.g. I was too lazy to bother with Archaeologists (each artifact is 4 points) or to kill the city-states on the last turn. I had slow tech and culture rate (yay wide empire penalties), low gpt for a long time, and my religion wasn't the best either, Pagodas become too expensive in later eras, so temple happiness would've been better.

Early game approach was to go Aristocracy - Full Liberty - Honor to the happiness policy, and get a bunch of 10-pop cities while killing everyone. Late game: Big Ben + Mercantilism + Skyscrapers + new cities start at 4 pop, fill up the map and just buy happiness and growth buildings. Didn't manage to found all the cities I wanted, had a few more settlers in position but couldn't stay above -10 happiness to plant them.

Okay, I just looked at your save file. 95 cities in 250 turns, with a few settlers out wandering around looking for a place to settle? Wow. And it looks like you managed to build several early game wonders. If you don't mind, how did you do that? Obviously you were building settlers in other cities besides Rome because you can't build 80+ settlers in Rome even if that's all you do after Collective Rule. (I've started do that too even when I go Liberty; I build about half my settlers in my capital) Did you kill everybody first (so they couldn't build Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, etc) and then built them at your leisure? I don't even know how you killed everybody in 250 turns with all the mountain ranges in the way, although I'm sure Kilimanjaro helped.

While I'm busy killing Russia, Austria is getting strong. If I go after Austria first (settle a city on the gold tile very close to Vienna, promise not to settle near her again to buy some time, amass an army there) Russia gets too strong to take down with composite bows and legions. I'm now trying forward settling both of them while bribing them to attack someone else, and building 2 armies. Hopefully Poland builds the Great Wall because I can capture Warsaw with galleasses and embarked pikes, and now I have the Great Wall. Meanwhile Persia always gains strength with somewhat-isolated salt start, and usually manages to build Chichen Itza so he's in continuous golden ages.

By playing a little more aggressively I can win this one now every time, but not an overwhelming win.

 

[vadalaz]

I had my 10-pop cities build settlers as soon as they were done with the necessary buildings (I actually built too many useless buildings, and I was slow to delete obsolete ones like aqueducts, no reason to have them in cities that will only ever grow one more time on the final turn). I also bought a lot of settlers after I had gotten Mercantilism and Big Ben.

I built some of the early wonders but they weren't a priority. I got Pyramids on turn 87, Mausoleum t101, Petra t113 and others even later. My early priorities were religion and conquest. I had two armies of 5-6 CBs and some spearmen, first army went south to attack Russia and the second attacked Greece. Killed those AIs with CBs, reached Machinery on turn 111, cleared the map by turn 172. Sweep order was Russia-Poland-Persia and Greece-India-Venice-Austria. I also took Bogota from Venice in a peace deal at some point. To secure a decent religion I just made sure to settle all the Gems fairly early.

 

[foxsaid]

Okay, I just looked at your save file. 95 cities in 250 turns, with a few settlers out wandering around looking for a place to settle? Wow. And it looks like you managed to build several early game wonders. If you don't mind, how did you do that? Obviously you were building settlers in other cities besides Rome because you can't build 80+ settlers in Rome even if that's all you do after Collective Rule. (I've started do that too even when I go Liberty; I build about half my settlers in my capital) Did you kill everybody first (so they couldn't build Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, etc) and then built them at your leisure? I don't even know how you killed everybody in 250 turns with all the mountain ranges in the way, although I'm sure Kilimanjaro helped.

While I'm busy killing Russia, Austria is getting strong. If I go after Austria first (settle a city on the gold tile very close to Vienna, promise not to settle near her again to buy some time, amass an army there) Russia gets too strong to take down with composite bows and legions. I'm now trying forward settling both of them while bribing them to attack someone else, and building 2 armies. Hopefully Poland builds the Great Wall because I can capture Warsaw with galleasses and embarked pikes, and now I have the Great Wall. Meanwhile Persia always gains strength with somewhat-isolated salt start, and usually manages to build Chichen Itza so he's in continuous golden ages.

By playing a little more aggressively I can win this one now every time, but not an overwhelming win.

I also looked at his save file.he killed the last CIV in turn 176. a little amazing

 

[zxcvbob]

I also looked at his save file.he killed the last CIV in turn 176. a little amazing

How did you get that? I tried looking at the Notifications log, but it only showed me the last 20 or so. And I tried to watch the Game Replay, but could not find it. Thanks.

 

[foxsaid]

Our Chinese players have a CIV-reads program, it can show some information by list. I don't know who make it, so please enjoy it youself and do not share it to shock the maker.

 

[foxsaid]

Our Chinese players have a CIV-reads program, it can show some information by list. I don't know who make it, so please enjoy it youself and do not share it to shock the maker.

If the maker asks, I will delete

 

[urbis]

Won with 1371 points. Raging unhappiness for last 20 turns or so, with barbarian uprisings pillaging most of Rome's hinterland, but managed to avoid having any cities defect.

- How useful was your UA/UU?
Didn't use ballistae. Built a few legions, and when I realised they could build roads and forts I used them for both to good effect.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Stole about 3 techs.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Having the starting area to myself made me change from initial plan of using Roman unique units to wage early war - instead build 4 cities and infrastructure. The limited land bridges into the home area took away most concern about invasion (though I kept a wary on on the Greeks in the later stages). Became a warmonger later on - conquered the Austrians and Poles, then took Venice and a couple of city states near end to boost score.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I've recently been playing deity level games, which has sharpened my game. Never seriously threatened by the neighbours, and although Greece created a good empire, was never at much risk of them beating me on score.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Some honor, then some tradition, then rest of both, then a couple of commerce.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Loved it - nice combo of empire building and warring.

 

[fatusblobus]

I beat it with 1189 points
Was a close one for me and a 3 way race between Darius, Maria, and me, but I utilised my friendship with the Russians to launch a joint Polish conquest on turn 225 and I conquered Polish capital on turn 241 which just pipped me to the top.

Lots of frustrating moments, beaten to several wonders by Persia and Austria by a mere couple of turns, but all in all a fun game which I wasn't sure I was going to beat.

Jesus though, 6000 points? That sounds unfathomable.

- How useful was your UA/UU?
UA for Rome is pretty good because you get production bonus on any buildings you have built in your capital. I stacked it with religious abiliity Religious Community to further increase production bonuses
UU I used ballistas and Legions to launch my first conquests against Wellington, Hanoi, and Lodz. My major mistake in this game was not beelining for these early on, if I had done so I could probably have quite comfortably conquered Russia and Poland very early in the game. But Legions are great, I built 4 of them and used them to build all my roads.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Hinder - My initial plan was to go down the Tradition route as I was expecting a tightly packed map with lots of border tensions, but then I discovered that I had a bit of open space and switched to the Liberty path, so sacrificed some early culture points by having 2 trees open. Also the map had lots of bottlenecks which made it difficult to send military to attack, although I got around this by using the legions to build roads to the cities I was planning to conquer.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It didn't really, normally I play Emperor or Immortal anyway. The victory condition affected my game decisions more, I threw caution to the wind and embarked on extremely risky military campaigns to rack up points late on because Persia kept on racking up the Wonders and Austria kept buying out the City States so they forced me into action.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Opened Tradition, then completed Liberty, and used the free great person to pop Parthenon wonder, then went back and finished Tradition. Opened Commerce because I was struggling for cash after that. Didn't make it to ideology.

It was an interesting map, although I didn't explore it all. I enjoyed the settings - the victory condition being points only on turn 250 isn't something I've played before, and it definitely changed my decision making. I didn't really worry about science too much because I knew the AI wouldn't be able to get that far ahead by turn 250.

 

[socralynnek]

Submitted an incomplete game at turn 200.
Was second in score at that point (slightly behind Persia)
I guess, I would have passed them when playing on...

...but...
I didn't get the balance between research / expanding / conquering right.
Probably expanded a little too early or started attacking too late. Or at the wrong side.
Went after Russia, but didn't bring enough units to take Moscow. Twice.

Then conquered some of Poland while filling my peninsula.

My religion was great, which was financing stuff, so I was doing ok.

Probably should have attacked Austria and then Greece, I guess, I would have made better progress there...