TSG200 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG 200 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]

Science victory on turn 371. It was an interesting game. I moved my warrior south before settling and saw coast, so I moved my settler to it. It took two turns, but I thought it might be worth it even at quick speed. Then it turns out the game isn't quick speed! (I need to look at the settings more closely before I start) I figured I could build an expo close to the starting position later. Gustav forward-settled me and cut off a lot of land for expansion so I just had 3 cities for a long time, but eventually I sent 2 settlers around and forward-settled him to secure another luxury (gold) and some coal. I thought I was going to have to kill him (he also killed a cultural CS early and I wanted to liberate it) but we stayed friends the whole game. A *lot* of the city states got killed this game, and not just by Mongolia. They were all doing that, plus Venice buying them. Like I said, it was interesting.

- How useful was your UA?
It was annoying at the very beginning of the game, but overall it was quite useful. I could grow all of my cities without bounds later in the game, not just Delhi.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I put my spies in Delhi just to level them up, then sent them out to flip city states. Eventually I had enough to take leadership of the world congress without spending too much gold. (I took the Order ideology and did not open Patronage, so I didn't get any influence for free except the occasional quest)

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The map type was fine. The actual map was annoying because of the ice blockages. I really wanted to settle by the Great Barrier Reef, but it would take way too long to get my settler there.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It meant I could go after just about any wonder I wanted except Great Library. (so I prioritized Temple of Artemis instead)

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Liberty, Commerce (and I finished both before Rationalism), Rationalism, Order(Iron Curtain first, then Space Pioneers or whatever it's called) Usually I would go Tradition and Freedom, especially with India, but I wanted to mix things up.

- What techs did you prioritize?
All of them. Seriously, I guess Optics (Great Lighthouse), Philosophy (temples, National College, and Oracle), Physics (Notre Dame), Fertilizer (more food, plus quickest path to Industrial era), Plastics, and Satellites.

- What did you think of the map and settings
Overall I liked it. Not having a Southeast Passage was aggravating. I don't remember if there were blockages to the north and west. I guess I could look at the screenshot...


I might "just one more turn" and get my warmonger on. Gandhi is really good at it, and Liberty sets it up nicely; Iron Curtain all the more so. It would be a shame to waste that.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Turn 326 SV. I had massive population thanks to the Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens. I settled Delhi and Vijayanagara on the coast for the cargo ships and Mumbai in the jungle for Lake Victoria. Later I settled Pataliputra for the gold up north and Varanasi because I got the free settler from Liberty. I managed to avoid war for most of the game but Sweden did attack me midway through. By that point I was in the Modern Era and he was probably in the Renaissance so I won without breaking a sweat. I made friends with him afterward for the great person bonus. I spent the whole game trying to grow as much as possible, and as you can see Delhi reached 52 population. By the end of the game I had 1800 science per turn, by far the largest I've ever gotten playing tall (although I once got 2804 playing wide as the Aztecs!)

- How useful was your UA?
Having less unhappiness from population was definitely helpful since my population was crazy high. I barely had to think about happiness past the Medieval Era.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I flipped a lot of city states with spies, it was marginally helpful but ultimately not that important.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Having only Sweden as a neighbor was very nice. I hardly had to build an army at all. By the time he attacked my I was so far ahead that my 4 units crushed his army and he gave me a city in the peace deal.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I usually play Emperor or Immortal so King was pretty easy. I tried to win quickly, rather than just coast to a victory. But I knew that a bunch of the more competitive wonders would be available to me so I grabbed a lot of early ones.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
I started with Tradition for the tall bonuses and finished it earlier enough (with help from the Oracle) that I managed to take the left side of Liberty before opening Rationalism. I chose freedom and finished Rationalism late for the free tech towards the end of the game. Freedom was great for the specialist bonuses and I was able to buy 2 spaceship parts as well. These meshed really well with the Leaning Tower and Mausoleum, both of which grant great person bonuses.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
At first I went for the ones with wonders I wanted, followed by the obvious science ones at the end of the game (Plastics and Penicillin for labs).

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Pretty easy overall for experienced players, nut I never play as India so I had fun trying to go crazy with science using their happiness bonus. Also having lots of grassland and rivers meant lots of food.

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 318 Science victory.
I was focused on using many cultural CS, so I took Patronage first. Later I took Rationalism and Order, and Liberty in the end.
I played passive aggressive. My wars started by AI attacks, and were finished mostly by my counterattacks, taking some of their cities.
Map and settings were nice

 

[raider980]

GotM 200 India SV T366.

This was a fun, smooth game. I turtled and tried to grow my cities as large as possible.

Besides when I stole a worker from Egypt, the only war I had was when Enrico tried to send a Merchant of Venice to my neighboring allied CS Mombasa; I couldn't allow that to happen so I killed it. Neither of us ever fired another shot in the war and in the end, Enrico offered me Byblos for Peace. Even though I didn't really need a city half way across the world, since it was late in the game and I had plenty of happiness, I took it just for fun.

At the start I also went south when I saw the coast and settled Delhi there for cargo ships. When I found Lake Victoria I knew I had to get it. Even though I was late with my settler I beat Gustav to it so that was nice. My core cities:

• T1: Delhi. Ended up at pop 42.
• T55: Mumbai on the west coast to get Gems and Whales. Pop 25 at the end.
• T72: Vijayanagara up by Lake Victoria. Final pop: 39
• T153: Pataliputra in the grasslands N of Delhi in range of two Gems. 34 citizens at the end.

Gustav was a warmonger all game. Looks like he was in your game too @zxcvbob . I saw him coming for Vijay early on when I had no army. So I bribed Genghis to attack him and he turned away. Then I saw another large army of Swedish troops coming past my city heading south. We were friends by then so I didn't think he was coming for me. Turns out he was heading for Egypt. Thebes fell not too long after that. I had planned on taking it since it had some nice wonders but Gustav beat me to it. I did get slightly worried by Sweden being to my north and east so I started building an army. Spain took Egypt out of the game shortly after that. Then I saw Sweden declare war on Mongolia - the Mongol capital fell a few turns later. I fully expected Gustav to attack me at some point but he never did.

• - How useful was your UA?
  • It was awesome. Allowed me to grow very high pop cities and still have tons of happiness. First game in a long time where happiness was not an issue at all.
• - Did you use spying to your advantage?
  • I was ahead in techs so just used spies to secure CS.
• - Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
  • All those grasslands and rivers helped a lot - especially with India's UA.
• - How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
  • I took it kind of easy and just had fun. Building wonders that I can't get on higher levels.
• - What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
  • I went full Tradition, some Patronage, to Rationalism. Was first to ideology so took Freedom to be able to buy spaceship parts. I was swimming in gold thanks to my religion, Gandhism, which had faith from Gems and Tithe.
• - What techs did you prioritize ?
  • I did a traditional tech path for science victory with a detour to Fertilizer to get the food bonus.
• - What did you think of the map and settings?
  • Nice map for India with all those grassland rivers. I messed up by not exploring fast enough to find the other continent early. That probably hindered my science and delayed the win a little.

Spoiler Launch! :

Spoiler SV T366 Indian home :

 

[FritsF1]

Turn 346 SV


The coast to the west seemed promising (luxuries and production) so I started by moving west. Whether that was wise, I don’t know, it did cost a few turns before Delhi was founded and later I build an expo were I could have SIP.

- How useful was your UA?
I like India, its UA makes me go for a tall empire. With all the happiness at the endgame I can see that going wide is also possible for India, but I never tried.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Only for rigging elections in CS and killing AI spies

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
I like continents on king level, on higher levels there is much more risk of a runaway AI on the other continent. The location was nice to turtle, luckily there were no battering ram neighbors. Only Sweden was a bit dangerous at the start. I build the Great Wall and some Elephants to keep Gustav from getting any funny ideas.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It makes early wonder building possible. Getting a fast win is a bit difficult, no techs to steal from the AI at this level.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full Tradition, then Patronage and Rationalism. I think Freedom is probably best for India with all its specialist bonusses, but I wanted to try something different so Order it was.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Mostly science focused and Fertilizer because of India’s UA.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
It was a nice peaceful game

@raider980 Nice launch picture

Thanks to the GOTM staff for keeping this up for 200 games!

 

[fiddlesticks]

Turn 299 Science win. Not submitting it since I tried the start several times to get the Great Library, but I learned a lot how to maximize a start with India.

Settled Delhi on the coast.

Build order: Monument, Worker, Granary (2 turns), Great Library
Tech Path: Pottery, Writing, Mining (to clear forests), Calendar (to get Philosophy as a bonus for GL)
Policies: Open Tradition (+3 culture), Open Liberty (+1 culture), Citizenship (for free worker and tile improvement speed)

This allows 2 workers and the ability to chop forests by the early 30's, and you can chop 4 forest tiles to get the GL at or before turn 40, early enough to beat the AI to it. Built the National College next.

After that I settled Mumbai on the coastal hill to the West and Vijay northeast in a swamp with access to Lake Vic, Truffles and later iron. All 3 cities ended up high 30's, with Delhi at 40 by the win.

I took volunteer army somewhere along the way and took Thebes (and Elephantine in a peace deal) by marching Infantry against X-bows.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Here's the save file

 

[Nizef]

Yet again, I want to make sure that all readers and players here are aware of all the shared games in the Strategy&Tips section. There are several threads to look into but those that are active at the moment are a) Enjoyable Deity Games and b) Other Enjoyable Civilization V Games. We are up to 125 Deity games at the moment and the other thread has been kick started with 15 games on different levels from Warlord to Immortal.

 

[golem]

Easy game. I foundate with three cities only. No war at all.

 

[JeffreyLXV]

Almost forgot to upload the game.

Turn 350 rocket launch.
Year: 1950

It's been a while, but I remember:

- Spain and Sweden busied themselves wiping out Mongolia, which I facilitated.
- Let Isabella spread religion.
- I should have gone after early wonders. I'm just not used to even trying to beat the A.I.
- Finding Lake Victoria early was fun.
- Tradition/Commerce/Rationalism/Freedom
- Grow population. Chase science techs. Make money to buy spaceship parts.

 

[beetle]

Thanks for another very entertaining GotM!

I thought I would try and play wide (and ran Liberty before Tradition), but only wanted four cities, even after killing off the neighbor to the north. The land just was not that great.

Still, even with only four cities, I locked up all the Gems and Truffles on the subcontinent. I very much enjoyed my lazy game.

SV t353 (1933), base score 1904, final score 2163. Only bought one part.

Had lots of gratuitous wars, but razed any city that I captured (except Stockholm). I really like being able to build some early Wonders!

 

[fatusblobus]

I lost this game.

Sweden and Mongolia simultaneously declared war on me and completely blindsided me with a 2 frontal attack

First game I've been conquered in in forever.

 

[Rhodro]

Hi, haven't played in a long time. Picked it up again last week.
I won with science victory at turn 279. Score 1606. Could have won 1 turn earlier because i forgot ss parts can only be launched in capital. I had a car park over the river...

I won't officially submit, because I reloaded once. Normally when i build a wonder i check the others capitals in the fog of war if the wonder is coming up. I did this for things early on like oracle, except i was lazy and forgot to do it for great library. Normally i never go for great library, but this time i was wondering if this difficulty was low enough to simply get it. Spain got it and i reloaded before i chose grand library. Did everything else the same.

- How useful was your UA?
Annoying at the start, i did a 3 city NC because of the big initial penalty. Went for a 4th city after that. Then i just grew them till in the end they were 44, 32, 30 and 28 pop. With 67 happiness.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Nah, only stole iron working from egypt i think. The AI's were so bad at science i overtook them very early and stealing was no longer possible, even though i tried to beeline to keep some techs open to steal. I leveled my spies in my capital and then parked them in a cultural city state.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The start was pretty slow due to very low hammers. I settled delhi in place so in the end it did get a lot of hammers due to hydro plant and a bunch of hills, but the start was slow. A lot of food potential though. I farmed up all the land around the rivers. Also cut jungle along rivers for more food.
Settled 2nd city on gem hill west of lake victoria and bought tiles. Tile buying was very expensive and also a reason why it took long to get hills to work.
3rd city on coastal hill south of the gold and sheep in the north so that it could reach cows and truffle.
4th city after national college on the river between kabul and kyzyl, between the hills to improve them with mines for some extra hammers.
Aluminium and coal gotten from CS. Only used 1 coal though, for factory in capital.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I was afraid i couldn't steal workers, because AI and CS produce less. I tried to steal from egypt, and was at war with him for a long time. I think i was able to steal 1 or 2 workers. It was difficult because of jungle. He also offered me his 3rd city all the time for peace. I just took all his gold and gpt every time, which was very nice. They are not as rich as difficulty 7 or 8 but easily give you a lot for peace. So i declared war with him multiple times to try steal more workers, plunder his tiles for gold, train a bit. Never took any of his cities. Later in the game i stopped my friend status with spain because she started to send prophets which really annoyed me. A few turns later i had to declare war on her to kill prophets. She did the same, offer me her city after a few turns. I took her gold instead. I only kept 4 archers, 2 horsemen and 2 warriors and upgraded till halfway the game, easily keeping me very high in military power compared to the rest. Most of the times i was 1st - 3rd in military power with this tiny defender army.
Oh and i was friends with sweden almost the whole game. I forward settled him with my 3rd city and he didnt like it, i locked him in that way. He didnt want to be friends at first, but i was friends with spain. He then became friends with spain, and that also made him trust me and give me friend status. When i declared war on spain for her prophets, sweden didnt immediately give me friend status after it expired, but like 5 turns later he offered it again. It was nice because iirc you get more great people from being friends with him.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full Tradition -> patronage opener -> philantrophy (amazing with the cultural CS) -> scholasticism (wondering if this is actually worth it. only 87 science per turn when i had all CS in game at my last turn)
Rationalism opener, to free thought and secularism.
Freedom -> avant garde, civil society, universal suffrage, capitalism, new deal, space procurements. I didnt see anything else that was gonna speed up science.
Because i had chichen itza and freedom, the 2nd golden age i had was perpetual with saved up great artists. i didnt even build taj mahal.still had 22 turns of golden age when i won the game.
Around the same time i finished rationalism for free tech to get sattelites. (btw i used oxford to get plastics)
Open commerce, to get big ben and cheaper buying of space ship parts. Also merchantilism for that reason.
After that i still got lots of culture so i finished up patronage and commerce. From patronage finisher i only got 1 venice great merchant. not that amazing.
i bought 2 great scientist and 1 great engineer for faith from the finishers tradition and rationalism.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Pottery, so i could build shrine. I thought it should be possible to get a religion going on this difficulty. Did scout scout shrine.
Animal husbandry to get some much needed hammers.
Mining to chop forests to get temple of artemis from archery.
Then i got masonry early for the stone and marble.
Writing.
I found i was gonna get philosphy too early before all libraries were up so i got bronze working too.
After that i focussed to get horseman, markets and civil service. Horsemen to make my military score better. I tried to avoid some techs so that i hopefully could steal them later with spies, so i didnt get any of the water tech and avoided bottom military.
Then the standard science track
Education, get into renaissance with acoustics, i was gonna get my social policy fast, so i had no time to do it with banking.
Got banking before metal casting, again hoping to spy steal. Only was able to spy steal iron working and around that time my science already overtook everyone.
Beeline public schools, electricity, and oxforded radio.
Factories, plastics, sattelites, advanced ballistics, particle physics, nanotechnology.

I think i timed my great scientists pretty well, none was wasted. I planted 3 and the rest was bulbed somewhere after plastics. The last 2 to get the last 2 techs.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
I missed the ancient ruins But refreshing to play without it sometime. I still got 3 scouts out to hopefully meet religious city states for pantheon, but that sadly didn't happen.
Difficult at the start to get a pantheon, but with faith from gems it slowly got somewhere.

Oh my religion was

• faith from gems
• tithe
• faith per world wonder
• swords into plowshares
• religious texts

I didn't have much faith at the start so i used it on 3 missionaries to spread it to my own cities and 4 city states close. Swords into plowshares was a mistake, it made me very conflicted if i wanted to war with egypt and spain for free gold. Faith per world wonder was the saviour in the end so that i could buy 2 great scientist and 1 great engineer.

I didn't gain too much from the friendships either, didn't get research agreements because i always have a feeling they don't give a lot and are harder to time right.

 

[zxcvbob]

I think this might be a fun one to replay for a domination victory. India does late-game domination very well (I'm not talking about the nuclear Gandhi meme.) Maybe take out one neighbor early with war elephants and spearmen or swords, but then switch to peaceful play for a while. Focus on culture and science the first half of the game; start your real rampage in the modern or atomic era. Capture a large city and your happiness goes up instead of down.