TSG205 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG 205 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?

 

[fiddlesticks]

Turn 299 Science Victory

This game hinged on Copenhagen becoming a production powerhouse. The food from ocean resources combined with the mines on the tundra hills had Denmark building almost every wonder.

With no where to explore early, I started out with a build order of a worker then a monument and a shrine. The shrine was prioritized to get extra production from fishing boats . I rushed to Optics, built a scout then the Great Lighthouse and some fishing boats, then Stonehenge, expanded on the gold northeast and then to the sheep hills north west. Built some cargo ships and the Colossus, some other wonders and then a small navy and a few Berserkers and took Babylon and Akkad, then Marrakesh. Then grow and build to the finish.

- How useful was your UA?
The embarked movement sped things up a little, but it wasn't a big factor at Prince. Berserkers were okay, but I had Frigates blasting 25 defense capitals, so a scout could have made the capture just as well.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Rigged a bunch of elections and killed dozens of spies.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
At first I thought the island was pretty bad, but after playing it I realize that with enough ocean resources and enough production tiles for three cities an island like Denmark's is quite good.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Focused on development. The neighbours were never any threat.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Tradition, 3 Patronage, Rationalism, Freedom to spaceship parts, finish Patronage (got one free great scientist and a Merchant of Venice), then some Exploration.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Optics, Ironworking, Education, Navigation, Plastics

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Learned more about what type of island can turn into a good game. Thanks again for another lockdown diversion!

PS - after victory on turn 299 I mistakenly clicked return to main menu after checking the graphs. I had to re-load turn 298, move the last booster and launch.

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 305 Science victory.
I prioritized Optics at the beginning. I was close to get Great Library, but failed. I built most of other important wonders. I focused on science buildings and techs needed to build them.
I had enough good free locations around the map, for 12 cities, so there was no need to go to war. AIs were very weak.
I partially took Patronage, all of Rationalism and all of Liberalism. I had social policies in Order more than ever.
UA made my settlers and workers faster.

 

[zxcvbob]

It took me 375 turns for a SV I usually go Freedom, but since I had coal I decided to try Order. Not sure which would have been faster. Also maybe I should have built Hanging Gardens in my capital instead of at my second expo over by King Solomon's mines (that was the very first thing it built) But I did build Colossus and I dedicated that cargo ship to sending food to Copenhagen (that's actually more food that HG)

Full Tradition, Exploration, full Rationalism, finished Exploration, Order(6), then started working on Commerce. I had so much gold I didn't know what to do with it all, and I ended about 25 techs ahead of the most advanced AIs. It was fun, but I forgot that at Prince level you kind of have to drag everybody else into the modern era and that slows you down a little.

Here's a picture of my empire, except for Ribe which is off-screen down by Kathmandu building missile cruisers. My tourism is kinda low; that is intentional because I didn't want an accidental CV. So I didn't built hotels, and no airport in Copenhagen. Now it's time to "just one more turn" and kill some AIs that have been annoying me.

Spoiler :

 

[OsbieFeel]

Turn 395 SV. I wanted to beeline to a Berserker war, but it wasn't easy to find iron. The first iron I saw was in Byblos, so I went after that. Polynesia got the first wave of Berserkers & Trebuchets. Then Morocco, so I had a good handful of wonders and settled down to being sciency. Going Liberty early didn't help our island-bound start, but it helped later when I had 13 cities. I then went full Patronage & Rationalism. Order seemed like the right choice later.

The UA was awesome combined with the Berserker traits but in other units it was an afterthought.

The best things I did with my spies was buying AI votes. I got my way with Congress.

Early tech progression was a little scattershot b/c hoping for early iron wasn't fruitful, then went to seafaring, then back to forking into Physics/Metal Casting. Education, then resource spotters. I was glad I'd gone wide early when we realized coal & oil wasn't that plentiful.

Thanks. My first Civ5 submission. I tried a couple times with Civ3 back in the day, but never had the right version.

 

[zxcvbob]

I had a save from my game at about turn 210. I went back and replayed from there, taking Freedom this time instead of Order. SV on turn 359 which was faster, but that might have just been because I now had knowledge of the map; mainly where the oil and coal would show up soon, and eventually some uranium. So I guess they are about the same

 

[FritsF1]

Turn 331 SV

- How useful was your UA?
It was nice to move units a bit quicker in and out of the water but it did not feel game changing. So, not very useful.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
To rig elections. The AI was too far behind to steal techs from.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The map was nice for Denmark. The start with all that tundra seemed not so great but it gave good production. The pantheon with hammers for work boats also helped production. Honolulu seemed to be in a nice spot so I took that city with berserkers.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I got distracted by wonder building. Making freedom the world ideology was a bit of overkill, only a few turns before the end an AI chose an ideology (order). I was hoping to push the whole world towards freedom, getting lots of declaration of friendships and research agreements. Arts funding was passed because I put all my votes to make my religion the world religion.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full tradition, Piety 2, Exploration 1, full Rationalism, Freedom 6, full Patronage

- What techs did you prioritize ?
All the science stuff

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Nice map, the main challenge was to win efficiently but I was too much distracted by building fun stuff (wonders I couldn’t usually get).
Thanks for the game.

 

[billybgame]

I had a very ho hum turn 448 victory.....however, have mainly been playing Warlord or lower, so I'll take it. I really haven't played or won a Prince game in over a year, I don't think...maybe longer. I feel the AI starts cheating about this difficulty, so prefer Warlord.

Various factors slowed me down. I'd have to really ponder how some were so much earlier. As it was, happiness was an issue for me at quite a few points in the game.

How useful was your UA? Was useful later on, when I deciced my 5 cities were not going to be enough.

Did you use spying to your advantage? A little. I did put one spy in a C/S...just to try it. Never really do that.

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how? It kind of hindered me. I went with the Tradition policy as a calculated gamble, as my island was so small. In retrosepect, that was probably an error. Also, only had my 3 cities and one on tiny island SW, then 5th on island just W of Honolulu. So, for awhile that choice didn't seem too bad.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose? Like said, Tradition, then some Honor as I did some warring, then Patronage, before going straight to Rationalism. My economy was very strong, so Freedom all the way to buy spaceship parts.

- What techs did you prioritize ? I tend to never do this. Just choose within a group. I've never thought beelining is optimal use of science.

What did you think of the map and settings? It was interesting...tricky to find enough early city sites, though.

As I said, had 4 cities, then figured out Polynesia was underutilizing their big island. This was before my first UA could be had. I placed my 5th city on the island just W of Honolulu. And, started to build catapults, etc. Then made a trade for Iron, so could upgrade to Berzerkers. Honolu was mine. Left his Southern city alone, and had room for 4 more cities on that island.

One big mistake for me after that was not taking my armies towards Morocco earlier. He was becoming a culture pain and clearly going for that victory. He was never more than 30% vs us, but I realized the error of my ways once Ideologies were chosen and my happiness went in the tank. I knew I had to do something about that quickly. So, spent a bunch to upgrade all my units and took them across the seas. He had just taken Assyr, so I first liberated that, then he didn't last long against my Artillery and Infantry, etc. I had a good enough tech lead to eliminate him very quickly and only keep Marrakech. Problem solved.

But, this and other errors really slowed us down. Seemed like my culture advancement was very slow. Science was ok and income was great. But, I did have to spend a lot of my fortune at various intervals.

 

[beetle]

I just plodded along until a T405 (!) SV. Base score was 2153, Final score 2658.

I very much enjoyed working the Dane UA and building some early wonders (Stonehenge, missed Great Library).