TSG192 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG192 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?

 

[foxsaid]

Finised on T117, it's hard to reach the west.

 

[zxcvbob]

I just finished it; 462 turns. I wanted to capture every single AI city. And I wasted a lot of turns early on, waiting for a declaration of friendship to expire with Arabia after I captured Venice. (they seem to last forever at epic pace) I know that was stupid, since everyone was going to hate me anyway.

Social policies were Tradition opener, left side of Liberty, Honor opener (because the raging barbs), finish Tradition, right side of Honor, Rationalism, Order(6), finish Liberty (great musician for the finisher), then started working on Commerce.

I did use spies, but they were not significant.

Because of the difficulty I built way more wonders than I probably should have. Part of that was for lack of gold to maintain anything else.

 

[zxcvbob]

@foxsaid: 117 turns? Was that your first play-through? It doesn't seem possible. How did you know to move you settler west so you could crowd Venice? It's still impressive even if you had advance knowledge of the map. I tried going Honor opener (because raging barbs) then straight Liberty, then building almost nothing but archers, and I couldn't take Venice in 100 turns -- Warsaw was too weak from not having a granary or watermill to really crank out the units fast enough.

 

[zxcvbob]

I played it again; I figured out that the starting local is an awesome spot for a city, but not your capital -- it takes too long to get the work boats up and protected from barbs. I settled on the gems near Venice, quickly put my second city close to Mt Sinai, and settled close to the original position much later. It still took me over 300 turns to win, but the first half of the game went much faster. (took a long time to get to the Huns, while keeping barbs under control throughout my expanding empire.)

Venice was the only city that was hard to capture. I wonder if it's better to go after Arabia first, and then come back for Venice?

 

[zxcvbob]

Okay, I've started this many times, trying to figure out what @foxsaid did. I move my settler west and settle on that first luxury (I think it's cocoa) just SE of the gems. It's a good location even w/o fresh water and the city grows quickly. Meanwhile my warrior.is exploring. I build a monument while researching archery, then crank out archers; and perhaps a scout. About the time of the first policy, I am being swarmed with barbs so I open Honor, then open Liberty. (perhaps I should ignore the barbs and go straight to Liberty) I declare war on Venice as soon as I can steal a worker. Keep building archers, and leveling them up by killing barbs. I use the free settler to settle on the cocoa up near Mt Sinai and buy the mountain tile. Work the mountain for a turn or 3 to get a pantheon, then work production tiles until I get a granary and watermill. Now the city can work Mt Sinai and still grow. This city just cranks out military units once it gets a few essential buildings.

But Venice is on a hill surrounded by jungle, and Enrico quickly builds walls (whether I declare war for the worker steal or not) It is just barely capturable with archers (really need 2 catapults, a horse archer, archers, and a spear, but it takes a long time to research and build those) and I lose several archers along the way. Now it's about turn 80, and it's not possible to travel all the way to Attila's Court in 40 turns even if every AI along the way surrendered when they saw me coming.

I know I'm not that great a player, and I get bogged down building unnecessary and expensive buildings (like a barracks, or early libraries) but I don't see how post #2 was even possible. I also haven't been tributing friendly city states; they like me for killing barbs and give me stuff, which seems more valuable than 60 or 70 gold. I'll tribute the hostile ones if I get a chance.

 

[bobbobbybobbob]

223 Domination Victory, I missed out on raging barbs. Hah.. Well prince is not a challange. I had more problems with barbs than anything.

The best way to beat this map is probably just go chariots and horsemen. I had killed a bunch of city states for fun... yeah I played this one pretty bad tbh.

Turn 117 seems very good to me. Well done foxsaid!

 

[zxcvbob]

I've played this a few times, and played just the first 100 or so furns several more. The fastest social policy path for me seems to be Honor starting with Warrior Code for a free great general. A citadel is crucial for capturing Venice, unless maybe you wait for composite bows and catapults. It might be better to take Disciplne before Military Tradition, I don't know. I fill Honor, then Patronage+Consulates, then switch to Commerce. No need for Rationalism at all unless I go the long game.

I like the chariots and horsemen idea.

Tradition is strong too, but with Tradition I always end up spending the first 100 turns getting a strong economy going, and *then* start warmongering.

Liberty starts out good but I always quickly run out of steam.

I wonder how a Piety strategy would work...

 

[billybgame]

I tried this and gave up in failure.....way too much unappiness and $ and tech woes. But, it was certainly way farther down the road than turn 117. I don't even see how that's possible, given the raging barbs. Seems a bit odd that Foxsaid hasn't responded at all either. Love some insights on how you do this in 117 turns.

 

[zxcvbob]

I tried this and gave up in failure.....way too much unappiness and $ and tech woes. But, it was certainly way farther down the road than turn 117. I don't even see how that's possible, given the raging barbs. Seems a bit odd that Foxsaid hasn't responded at all either. Love some insights on how you do this in 117 turns.

I had to leave one unit behind (or train a new recruit) for each city that I didn't raze in order to deal with barbs. So the Military Caste policy was pretty important, and I razed every city unless it had a wonder or unique luxury -- and I razed some of those later if I captured a capital that duplicated one of those luxes.

I'm thinking of trying this one more time and going Honor + Piety, and taking Heathen Conversion for the reformation belief. I don't think it'll be faster, but it'll sure be different!

 

[raider980]

Winged Hussar domination! T406. A fun game!

I moved north toward the mountain but then my Warrior saw Crab that would be out of range of my capital and wouldn't leave room for another city, so I moved back to the original location. Hahaha, I spent two turns to settle in place. It was harder than I expected in the beginning because of money problems. I was negative gold for quite a while. The AI are so bad on Prince that they don't have any money or luxes to trade. Luckily I could get money from barbs.

The UA was nice. I was able to fill Honor and Commerce, get some Patronage and Tradition and then go back and finish Liberty. Being Prince, I knew I wanted to get a big Winged Hussar army so I didn't take a traditional tech path. I got the necessary techs for my luxes and then beelined for Winged Hussars. I probably could have taken all the cities with just WH but I played it safe and got a few Xbows and then Canon toward the end. WH are amazing. I didn't like the push back ability at first - one time I pushed the enemy right back into his city. But then I got the hang of it and was able to push them in directions where my other Hussars could get them and kill them.

 

[ChtiGariX]

Finished turn 326, I hoped a better result
My scouting wasn't really good, my scout was killed near Venice and I went on exploring the west much later.
Otherwise I could have saved many turns.
The best strategy would probably have been HA spam

edit: but I'm happy to play a GOTM for the first time !

 

[zxcvbob]

I played this again last night, Honor opener plus the free general, then full Piety, then back to Honor to finish it, and started on Commerce. My best time so-far, 311 turns, and that was taking the time to go back and eradicate a couple of civs that I let live after taking their capitols. I took Venice around turn 95, then Arabia 10 turns after that. I never made it to winged hussars this time; mainly I had two extremely promoted composite bows (against Egypt and Huns, they were crossbows) that I used to destroy the AI's army and then beat down the city defenses until I could send in a pike or something. I had a couple of pikes,an Impi, and a horseman whose main job was to protect those two archers, then I would send them in when the city was down to zero. (I captured a few cities with a scout)

I never did get around to building a national college. I would start building it, but then I would raze a city and it would go ineligible. Or I would settle or annex another city and a library was not a high priority right away. So I mostly built wonders instead after my subcontinent was cleared. I took Heathen Conversion for my reformation belief, and that got me out of a few jams when I was being overrun by barbs. But it also got me in trouble with unit maintenence for a while and I started having units disband, so I sold a bunch of horsemen, etc to raise some cash. I'm not sure what happened when I suddenly went from losing lots of money per turn to making a nice little profit, maybe puppets all built markets and mints at the same time.

 

[ThePymonster]

Won on turn 397 as my hussars and cannons took Thebes from Atilla to complete the victory. Hurrah!

- How useful was your UA?
As usual with Poland, pretty useful - whatever policies you pick, picking more of them is always good.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Didn't really need to - after taking Venice, Mecca, and Marakech, I had basically crippled the high-scoring countries in the game and was outpacing the other civs in science. My two spies racked up a series of kills of their foreign counterparts as I used them defensively or in city states for extra influence.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Pangea is pretty friendly for domination I think although there were some tight land bridges in this one. But the starting area is pretty good I think. As mentioned above, Venice was in a pretty tricky position to take which had me worried the rest of the game would be a slog but it wasn't, Mecca fell soon after and I rolled through the other countries with hussars and crosbows (gatling guns by the time I took the final two cities, both from Atilla had as he had already taken Thebes from Egypt before I got there).

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It was reassuring to play on Prince after losing TSG193 on King! I'm amazed how much easier it was, although I guess Poland being a top-tier Civ also helps.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Tradition -> Patronage -> Rationalism, was building Factories when the game ended.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
The usual - three-city National College, get Composites to take out Venice and Mecca, then crossbows and hussars to roll through the rest.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Good fun, especially considering I'm often way of Epic or Marathon game length as I prefer not to play dozens of sessions. I'm in awe of those who can do it in under 200 turns, though!