TSG203 After Action

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG 203 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?
 
T343 SV

This was a rough ride. I won, but it was a close call, Siam was the just one spaceship part away from launching. I was planning to faith buy some great scientists near the end of the game, but forgot that you have to finish Rationalism first :blush:

- How useful was your UA?
The extra defensive combined with the hills and mountains was great. I was attacked twice. The first time by Askia. He lost some units by invading Ethiopia, after that the Zulu’s declared war on Askia and took most of his cities. Later I was attacked by Shaka (my untrustworthy friend), thankfully the mountains made defense easy. From then on I had the means to pay all of the AI’s to fight each other for the rest of the game.
Spoiler Zulu invasion :

t275e.jpg



- Did you use spying to your advantage?
First to catch up on techs, later for rigging elections

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
It made defense easy.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
On Deity, getting the early wonders is hard so I did not even try. The first wonder I build was the Porcelain Tower.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full Tradition, some Commerce, most of Rationalism (finished it one turn before the end of the game). I was third to choose an ideology. Siam had Order and was culture leader. The Zulus had autocracy but were forced to switch to Order after a few turns. I would have liked to go for Freedom, but with 2 happiness and a lack of culture, I had to go for Order.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Mostly the upper part of the tech tree for science. I took a sidetrack to get Neuschwanstein.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
It was fun, I was not certain I could win this one, so I was very happy to see the victory screen.
 

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Turn 290 Science victory.
I focused on science. I placed cities well, having many productive tiles, especially with fresh water. Defense was easy, because of the map, and I was attacked quite late. Zulu, Ottomans and Songhai failed with their invasions of my lands, losing their units for nothing. It is good that I had good relations with Polynesia and that they were attacked by others, so I never had possibly unpleasant war along long weak border with them.
 

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I loss by CV T346. But what really killed my game was loosing Harar on T189. I kept playing, but was never able to make up for that.

I played the map again from the early game, not settling quite as aggressively, and went on to a very pleasant (but not noteworthy) SV.

Thanks again @Knowtalent for another very enjoyable game! Anytime I replay a map, it means things are more interesting than usual! And that seems to always be the case with your GotM!
 
Turn 258 Science Victory

The early game was focused on securing three good expansions and establishing a religion. I settled Addis Ababa next to a mountain just right of the cattle to enable an observatory in the capital later. That turned out to be a good call as it scooped up another gem tile to the south east on the other side of the mountian range. Initial build order was scout, steele. I got first or second pantheon and chose tears of the gods for the Gems faith which was great because some jungle hills I never had to develop. I just took 2 food, 2 faith and three gold all game.

Settlers started at population 4. Harar was settled next to a mountain due south with access to salt, Adwa next to a mountain on the silver. Lalibela's placement and development was my big goof this game. I thought I could reach Lake Victoria from the gems I settled on, but mis-calculated and was one hex away. Polynesia did attack early on though with Maori warriors, swordsmen and comp-bows so I may have lost it had I settled on the flatland. I had to buy walls as it was. The early game got off to a good start with three city-state worker captures and 2 workers from Polynesian settlers recaptured from barbs.

After the war with Polynesia I had peaceful development for quite some time. I rushed university tech and detoured to observatories. When war did come (with the Ottomans) I had built forts near the Grand Mesa and he broke his army against 2-3 blocker units that went from longswordsmen to Mehal Serafi's in a handful of turns. I was rushing for plastics at the time, so I went on the offensive with 4-5 infantrymen with cover and siege promotions and captured Thebes from Suleiman (Thebes had +20 faith worth of wonders) and then a mid-tier Ottoman city on the other side of the Grand Mesa that had lots of oil and 2 uranium. An infantryman soaking up 5-6 attacks in one turn and still staying above 50% is pretty fun. I planted a great general around there too which was fun as well.

Culture was a bit of a challenge this game with no cultural city-states. I had to actually build amphitheaters and opera houses which I rarely prioritize. I captured at least 3 archeologists from Suleiman which helped the culture game too.

I missed a tradition finish straight into rationalism by just a few turns unfortunately. I had to open patronage instead of going straight to rationalism. I took Order because with the faith I was generating I figured 2 great engineers for spaceship parts would be doable.

The first wonder I got was Porcelain Tower. No other wonders were really game changers except Hubble which was great engineer rushed.

- How useful was your UA? The Steele is a great unique building, one of the best. Easy path to a good religion. I took both pagodas and mosques to help make up some culture and happiness. The rifleman upgrade is pretty good too. With national epic I had triple promoted units out of the gate.
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Quite a few steals from the Ottomans and even one from Polynesia. Then rigging elections.
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Mostly helped. Great defensive position and access to observatories helped a lot. Food was an issue without sea trade routes, so sparing specialists for guilds was painful.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
No early wonders, but helped with research agreements.
- 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?
 

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Turn 255 science victory (two-and and half years after the fact, but I was looking for some interesting science victory games :) ). It was a humbling experience playing Deity again after trying some other GotM challenges on (much) lower difficulties. I started out playing too complacent, and very nearly lost the game because of it. The early game was scout - stele, and from 4-pop into settlers for 5-city tradition. Four observatory cities, and a city for Lake Victoria.

My complacency was regarding Shaka: I thought he could never attack through that terrain but of course he could.

Shaka attacks.png

When he declared war, I thought I had time to buy a unit and block the choke point. However, I had forgotten about the Ikanda promotions, and he could claim two tiles next to my capital. His first two units were a warrior and a spearman, but soon an impi appeared. In a turn or two later, the catapult was in range, the impi was next to my city, which was in the red. My two brave warriors slammed the impi but both exploded; the game was over. But he accepted peace!

The game continued, but not without cost: because I spent time building the wall, I lost Oracle by a turn to Polynesia. I had only checked Egypt's capital, but honestly I should never have been attempting the 10+ turn build in the first place. It set back my NC timing by 10 turns, so I was surprised my timing was not terrible: workshops into universities for T134 Astronomy. However, the detour did mean I missed first entry into Printing Press, which is often manageable. This could give two advantages: trying the Leaning Tower, and chairing the World congress, proposing World's Fair which will make civs like me, and give me the opportunity to get some much-needed social policies. In this game, I could not propose anything until the third sitting and in the meanwhile the AI were proposing annoying luxury bans, as they do.

After the initial war, Polynesia also came calling, but I could bribe him to attack Ottomans when I spotted his units. I was able to refresh this war for most of the game, keeping me safe as Shaka did not try again either (and now I had fortified units in forts in the two choke points, roaded so I could swap units if needed, but I never did. However, the game did not get much easier after that. My cities were not great (the disadvantage of hugging a mountain range), my culture was poor, my gold was not good either, and once ideologies hit my Freedom choice was confronted with a revolutionary wave. I did consider changing then (I had just built Statue anyway), but I did not want to change to Autocracy, so I worked all specialists, and slowly started to work on digging myself out of my culture and happiness hole. Hermitage, broadcast tower in the cap, 5 archeologists (useful steal from Siam), faith-buying an engineer for Neuschwanstein, and an eventual World's Fair meant my happiness was restored, and all the necessary policies obtained - but it did not feel like a fast game anymore. Still, seeing the difficulties other players faced, I feel a better about the finish time.
Ethiopia.png
 
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