TSG210 After Action

I missed the part of the game description where it said the turn limit was 200. When the end screen popped up I thought I had lost and didn't know how (assumed a culture loss to Egypt, but that didn't seem possible -- and it wasn't)

I enjoyed the game. I might have played a little differently if I realized it was a short one; I was gearing up for 500 turns. For sure I would have captured Babylon instead of waiting to do so with battleships. And also probably would have conquered the Aztecs.

The UA is great. Portugal makes twice as much gold per trade route as anybody else, so about the same gold as Venice without so much management. Gold from Naus was not a big deal, but the extra movement point over caravels probably was; it certainly aided exploration.

I did use spies in Lisbon and in city states, but they were not significant

The game difficulty meant I could go for any wonder I wanted, but probably not all of them. Significant ones were Great Library, Colossus, and Petra. (I used Great Library to unlock Colossus instead of Oracle and National College)

Social policies were Tradition opener, left side of Liberty, finished Tradition, Rationalism(4), then back to Liberty (but time ran out before I finished it.) Freedom(3) for my ideology. Tradition and Liberty because I was going to have about 5 self-founded cities and a bunch of puppets.

Important techs were Iron Working (Colossus), Currency (markets and Petra), Printing Press, Astronomy, Navigation, and Radio.

Looking back, Exploration might have made the most sense for a second policy tree after either Tradition or Liberty.

 

I apparently didn't save the 200th turn. Nowhere to be found anyway. Just did my usual thing and setup a 3 city civ on coastal sites and then stuffed food in all cities with boats Hint: go for archeology as quickly as possible or you will run out of time trying to excavate sites.

I made it to Charles DeGaul 1400+. A pleasant way to waste Sunday morning Thanks for the setup,

 

T200 Time Victory Score 1295

Settled in place for that great salt start. Built two scouts which was more than necessary based on the small starting continent. Went for Pottery, Mining, then Optics to be able to settle the desert up north. Got Earth Mother pantheon. Despite difficulty 4, wonders were going like crazy. I somehow got beaten to all of Hanging Gardens, Parthenon, Oracle, Colossus, and Chichen Itza which was disappointing. (How are difficulty 4 AIs spamming wonders!?)

I did eventually take the tech lead around the Renaissance and build Notre Dame, Leaning Tower, Sistine Chapel, Globe Theater, Porcelain Tower, Uffizi, Louvre. After that point I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. I rushed Industrialization but had no coal. Had to go to Radio to get the Freedom ideology. Then rushed to Replaceable Parts for Statue of Liberty, which I think might be the best wonder in the game. Went Plastics for research labs and spam built archaeologists. I was well on my way to an easy cultural victory.

If I had to say what strategy would give a better score, I would try harder to get those early game wonders. Wonders are worth a lot of points, and missing out those early ones was brutal. Also, building a fleet of frigates and taking enemy capitals to get their wonders would definitely bring my score up by a lot.

 

T200 TimeVC, score 7166. Fun game, but it started lagging towards the end, so I stopped expanding on turn 180 and focused on growing the cities I had already planted or captured.

The plan was to treat the game as a total DomV minus one AI capital, go for a Galleass -> Frigate rush with Liberty + Exploration. Expand rapidly when happiness soars at ideologies and after winning WF.

I went for fast Great Library and National College, as it seemed like the quickest path to Compass. I also built 4 triremes before NC to go meet and bully AIs and CSs. I opened Tradition first, then took the Liberty worker, and after that Collective Rule. In hindsight going full Tradition first was a much stronger play. I don't think I ever built any settlers in the capital, so Collective Rule was largely a waste.

Turn 50:


I hit Compass on turn 60 with over 1600 gold saved up. I quickly got two armies of 5 Galleasses each, opened Exploration and started eliminating AIs. Meanwhile I built lots of classical and medieval wonders in Lisbon, only missing Hagia Sophia, Great Mosque and Terracota.

I didn't play a strong religious game due to my delayed expansion. I had a great religion with EM, Tithe, Pagodas and Religious Centers, but it didn't spread very far and my faith per turn was low, so I didn't make much use of my Pagodas.

Turn 100:


Frigates made quick work of AI cities and soon it was just me and Haile Selassie left. The best spot for Nau missions I found was next to Addis Ababa, yielding 286 gold and 22 XP. Selling the Nau brings another 20 gold, making up for unit maintenance costs. I figured there was nothing better than Naus to build, so soon I had a bunch of cities 1-2 turning Naus.

With all that gold I made the decision to go Order here and capitalize on Skyscrapers + Mercantilism + Big Ben. Normally I go Freedom in Time games as it has more food, but with only 200 turns I think Order with its super cheap buildings was the right pick.

Turn 150, starting World's Fair:


For WC proposals I chose Culture Heritage Sites - World's Fair - International Games - World Religion. Some turns after winning WF I burned a bunch of writers and got the policies I needed for cheap buildings and lots of easy happiness, so I started expanding like a madman.

I also continued spamming Naus for as long as I could. At a certain point I had to DoW Haile, so my Naus had to wait 5 turns before they could sell goods next to Addis Ababa. This caused a bit of a traffic jam:



I believe my gold went from 1000 to over 13000 on the turn I made peace with Ethiopia.

Needless to say, with this kind of money it was trivial to ally CSs and buy all the buildings I wanted in my core cities. I delayed researching Steam Power for as long as I could, and I really missed the gold from Naus after they'd become obsolete. The endgame was mostly about purchasing happiness buildings every turn. Lots of small things I could've done better, like worker management, religion, archaeologists, going Tradition first etc, but at some point it just becomes too time-consuming.

Turn 200:

 

Score victory 989....which seems crazy low after reading Vadalaz write up......but then, I took Babylon and beyond that, played a very calm, quick, game.

I had 4 cities on our starting island......then settled down to see how scores would play out....Babylon was becoming very annoying, building wonders left and right. When he took a 200 pt lead mid game, I knew his capital had to go. I had no army whatsoever, but that soon would change. I dare say he was surprised because when we arrived, he had no army either.

The moment I took his capital, I took a 200 pt lead. So, just settled in for a peaceful game. Did add one more city W of Babylon as the AI mismanages their land so very much.

The only other war I had was with my buddy, Montezuma, just because the AI gets so annoying with their attempts at their religion spread, and I just won't have it. But, after I took his prophet we had no other skirmishes, and I even refused his free city.

So very peaceful game. Thought about extinguishing Babylon empire as he was so annoying. But, let him be.

 

Turn 200 Score victory, 3989 points.
I took most of AI cities, including all capitals except one. I was careful to avoid to win another kind of victory, especially cultural, letting one civ with good culture accumulation to live. I disbanded most of units after I conquered what I wanted.

 

T200 Score Victory. Score = 1969 points. Looking at the score breakdowns it seems like having a lot of cities and as much population as you can get from them gives the highest scores. Wonders do help too as well as tech. And the rest are small potatoes. I went around and bought all the land surrounding my cities but it didn't make that much difference. And I conquered Thebes shortly before the end; it has a lot of wonders but I'm not sure if they count because the city is still in revolt. I think they must because the score did go up after I captured it but that could be from population.

I did discover that Portugal is pretty awesome; much better than I had thought. Happiness and money were easy to come by; can't get a mercantile CS ally? No problem, just go build a Feitoria. Running low on money? Build a Nau, which are available for a very long time. Of course, the map helped a lot. Portugal is definitely a water civ, which is fine; I like water maps. I wouldn't want to play them on Pangea but then again I wouldn't play Polynesia on Pangea either.

• I got lucky with a pop ruin on T4. Atilla was spamming cities on Prince; I thought that was odd.
• My religion was Earth Mother, Tithe, Pagodas, Divine Inspiration (first time I think I've ever taken that) and Inerint Preachers.
• On T106 I discovered Astronomy and am 4th in Literacy; how is that possible on Prince?
• I eventually DoW Nebby because he kept sending prophets trying to convert my core cities; turned out to be a good move because I got more cities and pop out of it. I should have built ships earlier and taken more AI cities but didn't think about it soon enough.
• I went Order for the cheap purchasing and because it was Prince and I knew I could get Big Ben. I had a lot of policies and ended up opening and taking a few SPs in all policy trees except Honor and Piety.

A fun one! I want to try Maria on a higher level now.