TSG22 After Action Report

[Mazer Rackham]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-19
Reference number: 25038
Your name: Mazer Rackham
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1844AD
Turns played: 292
Base score: 4690
Final score: 8086
Submitted save: TSG22_MazerRackham_Final.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Mazer_Rackham_C502201.Civ5Save

As I mentioned in the In Progress thread, I accidentally went down 6 policy trees in this one. That's what I get for continuing to play after bedtime.

Someone had to pay... and it ended up being the AI. I will have to settle for having the highest final score on this GotM.

I put a beat down on the world. But the UA of the Aztecs doesn't seem to bring in enough culture (at least on King) to make a dent when going for Culture victory. I started with the Rationalism opener and switched to Piety after getting to the final culture techs. I was able to complete the Sydney Opera House at 214, but it didn't speed things along as quickly as I hoped. I think I would've shaved off about 15 to 25 turns had I not mistakenly gone down an extra policy tree; so I don't think I would've competed for quickest victory time anyway with this approach.

Here is the final screenshot:

Spoiler :

Toku had only his capital and Wu had just settled a 2nd city on the final turn. Only the Asians were allowed to survive! It was a fun game that bested my previous high in my Hall of Fame by over 2,000 points!

 

[Tabarnak]

Here is the final screenshot:

Spoiler :

Toku had only his capital and Wu had just settled a 2nd city on the final turn. Only the Asians were allowed to survive! It was a fun game that bested my previous high in my Hall of Fame by over 2,000 points!

So much red on this map! Who said that cultural victories mean peaceful victories? heh

Nice one Tabarnak! Looks like you're outclassing me in all victory types now.

Thanks! I'm the most surprised with this game. I always sucked with cultural victories before.

 

[basta]

That was a fun game!
Could as well have been domination, but I did win on culture on turn 314 with a score of 3464. Founded 2 other cities and took liberty, piety freedom, tradition patronage (weird order, I know, but started tradition early, then waited to finish it late to get broadcast towers). Had about 10 puppets: 4 from Russia with Moscow, 2 from Japan, 1 from Germany, 3 from USA with DC, but happiness kept me from puppeting more. Had all the culture CSs from about turn 80 onward, and 2 maritimes and 4 militaristic from 200 onward.

 

[xerex]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Your name: xerex
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 1260
Final score: 1909
Time played: 4:12:00

Fun those random personalities! Also they kept DOW'ing me one after there other, and most RA's got cancelled because of that; however they offered loads of cash for peace
Large military (thanks to the CS) and few loses, but I didn't capitalize much on it. Russia was close but refused to improve its four whales until modern times (so little point in taking it imo); china too far to puppet; Germany pretty strong but more importantly, my only reliable trading partner.

Thanks for the game!

 

[thio]

Finally a game i manage to complete again ..

Just started to play for the fun of it, looked like a nice start. Only looked up the victory condition a bit later, when i had already built 4 cities.. might have slowed it down a bit for culture.

Didn't have too good a start, loosing two jaguars to barbs, and i was peaceful for quite some time.

Russia dowed me, and i built my 4th city close to them, starting to assault their capital but never managed to capture it. After the strong japanese declared on me as well i decided i wanted peace with catherine, who just then offered a nice peace package giving me her other 3 cities. Had to rush my army over to defend against the now very close japanese and had some happiness problems, but it turned out alright.

Had a few more wars, one with germany, who also gave me their cities
They got wiped out soon after by the chinese.

I always went back to peace quickly since the game got slow. So my spread wasn't quite as big.

 

[Lormax]

My first GoTM in a long time...Turn 294, Culture victory. Went for a 3 city strat, with the third in Texcoco's spot in the spoiler picture that Tabarnak posted. The city didn't do very well there.

 

[QuizMan]

Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-21
Reference number: 25040
Your name: Quizman
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1924AD
Turns played: 345
Base score: 1243
Final score: 1827
Time played: 7:42:00

An easy, if unspectacular victory.

It started OK, but I did not micro-manage nearly enough mid term. I am a defensive player by nature so I should have gone to war on the AI, but I didn't. Everyone declared on me except Washington, but I can defend well enough so they were never a threat.

I finished with 4 cities and 3 cultural allies

Used a scout and a couple of jags for early exploration. Used the pottery>writing>GL opener to move asap to piety. I think I opened Trad and Liberty before clearing all of piety before doubling back to complete trad. Freedom and the rest of liberty was next and patronage completed the 5.

I signed about 10 RA's and I think I finally understand how they work.

It was a bit of a wonder-fest in my capital. The vital ones were Stonehenge. Oracle, Sistine, Sydney and Christo, but I picked up many more besides.

The moral for me is to be more aggressive. I clearly need to understand when is the right time to DOW an AI, but we are not allowed to reload on GOTM so I have a safety first policy. Perhaps GOTM24 will be a prince/king domination game!

 

[Arnold_T]

Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 2065
Final score: 3128
Time played: 116:42:00

Fun Game Leif, thanks! I found the random personalities weird at first, but eventually came to know the new personalities (I think). Still would prefer no random personalities though.

Learned a little about Culture Victories too I think. Next time I would work harder at:
1) faster teching, and taking tech paths to break into the new ages earlier (for increasing Culture from city states).
2) early aggressiveness to puppet some enemy cities (for gold for getting city states).
3) settle only three cities if the fourth one is kinda marginal anyway - why not let someone else settle it, then go puppet it!

 

[DeityBarbarian]

My first Civ5 GotM submission. Very entertaining game

Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1913AD
Turns played: 333
Base score: 1140
Final score: 1727
Time played: 10:57:00

I didnt do very well, never tried culture victory before.
Even tho i ended up having 11 landmarks around my capital city.
Propably should have built more cities, seems 3 is not enough
Never seen so much war in any of my (few) Civ5 games, AI´s were all total maniacs.

 

[Tabarnak]

Time played: 116:42:00

 

[Schalke 04]

Culture Victory Game date: 1836AD
Turns played: 288
Base score: 1648
Final score: 2891
Time played: 8:10:00

My first GOTM participation with Civ V, and my very first game that I played culturally. Normally I just go for conquering the world. Therefore I'm quite happy with my turn number.

Here is my empire:

Spoiler :

I just settled two more cities. The third spot which was settled by many participants was a little bit too close to Russia for my liking. The eastern city was very close to America already and I didn't want to risk a two front war, especially as I haven't had roads in the beginning and a weak military.

RAs were suboptimal but still OK. I drained most of AIs money by trading, so they were close to being broke for most of the game.

Maybe I should have done more conquering, but I didn't invest too much in military and I am normally used to attack with a military tech advantage. Not in this game of course, as I was focussed on the top of the tree.

However it was "just king" and I could have done more in terms of military actions. Well, I think I was just a little bit scared, as reload was not an option. And then I thought it may be a good idea not to puppet, because the happiness overflow was a good chunk of culture. I don't know if that pays off...

SP wise I went for Tradition - Autocracy first.
Then Liberty - Piety - Freedom
Somewhen in between I chose the 4 cultural building policy (I think it was for Monasteries after temple.
Last policy tree was Partonage.


On a sidenote: Wu DOWed me several times, but her units never really came through the terrain of my allied CSs...

 

[leif erikson]

My first GOTM participation with Civ V, and my very first game that I played culturally. Normally I just go for conquering the world. Therefore I'm quite happy with my turn number.

Welcome to Civ5 GOTM.

Congrats on your win and date.

 

[Farrapo]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-23
Reference number: 25053
Your name: Farrapo
Your email:
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1902AD
Turns played: 323
Base score: 2700
Final score: 4218
Time played: 6:31:00
Submitted save: Montezuma_0323 AD-1903.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Farrapo_C502201.Civ5Save


Settled in place, built two cities (east and west), engaged in multiple wars, annexed Moscow, took several other Russian and Japanese cities, allied all CS's, was way ahead in everything. Main problem was missed getting Sistine Chapel by one turn .. popped it with a GE and another Civ got it on the turn. Bummer.

The five SP categories completed were (in order): Liberty, Patronage, Tradition, Honor, Freedom

Early picks:

Spoiler :

Tenochtitlan: Monument, Scout, Granary, Jaguar, Worker (buy), GL, worker (buy), NC, Floating Gardens, SH, Settler, Oracle, Monastery, HG ...

Research: Pottery, Mining, Writing, AH, Wheel, Phil (GL), Calendar, Archery, BW, IW, Sail, Trap, CS ...

SP: Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Aristo, Collective Rule, Citizenship, Representation, Meritocracy, Republic, Patronage ...

 

[RedRover57]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-23
Reference number: 25055
Your name: RedRover57
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1838AD
Turns played: 289
Base score: 2067
Final score: 3626
Time played: 22:44:00
Submitted save: TSG22_289.Civ5Save
Renamed file: RedRover57_C502201.Civ5Save

I made a number of mistakes that would have shaved off time, including:

1) I used my first GE (from the HS) to rush a wonder (ND) in my capital instead of in city 2, So I had to use the Liberty finisher GE to rush the Kremlin in city 2 and hard build the Taj Mahal in city 3. This was a substantial loss of culture over time.
2) Late in the game I took one of France's cities and set it to raze, but then realized it would have been a decent puppet so I stopped the razing (thinking that I could then puppet it). This apparently was counted as an occupied city and it increased my SP cost. Even when I set it back to being razed, the culture cost stayed increased when it was burned down.
3) I didn't focus enough on Science as I thought that broadcast towers probably wouldn't be needed. But I now realize that I should have increased my science more to get to Radio earlier. I should have taken Patronage for my last policy tree (for Scholasticism, since I was allied with most of the CS) instead of Honor, which didn't help me that much other than a bit of culture and happiness. Also, I didn't sign any RA's, but wouldn't have been able to sign many anyway since I was at war with the other civs most of the game.
4) I'm wondering if settling 4 cities to start would have been better than 3. I'm thinking that the extra city would have more than made up for the slight increase in policy cost.

I'm sure all of these errors cost me at least 20-30 turns.

One thing to note in my save file submission - I had a bad crash on turn 242 and had to reload the turn 240 autosave. This didn't have any material impact on my game as I was basically just riding things out to the end by then.

 

[RedRover57]

One thing I meant to ask. At some point in my game Mt. Fuji lost its culture bonus. So it went from a 2 gold and 5 culture tile to 2 gold only. Is this working as intended or bugged in my game? It was frustrating because I settled my 2nd city in a suboptimal spot (away from fresh water) specifically to have Mt. Fuji within range. And even more annoyingly, the city governor grabbed every other tile around Mt. Fuji first for border expansion and I couldn't spare the 180 gold to buy the tile, so I didn't even receive the culture bonus for very long before it disappeared.

 

[leif erikson]

One thing I meant to ask. At some point in my game Mt. Fuji lost its culture bonus. So it went from a 2 gold and 5 culture tile to 2 gold only. Is this working as intended or bugged in my game?

Sounds like something with your game install?

In testing, I did not see this, Mt. Fuji provided culture for the entire game for me, afaik. Perhaps someone else has some insight?

 

[Monthar]

I had the same thing happen with Mt Fuji.

 

[leif erikson]

Did it happen as a response to something you had done, built or adopted a policy? It is baffling?

 

[Monthar]

Not that I know of and I don't know when it happened. I just noticed that it was no longer giving culture when I shifted focus back to culture in that city. When the governor didn't select Mt Fuji, I manually did and that's when I notice it was only giving 2 gold.

I checked the Civilopedia, but couldn't find anything that would intentionally cause this. I don't recall seeing any policy nor tech that would cause this. So it's either a bug or something they changed in one of the patches but didn't change any of the in game text to reflect it.

 

[kcd_swede]

Another average game from me. Was fun, but outcome wasn't much in doubt after the first couple wars. I was never the aggressor, btw.

4-city game with Moscow, Edinburgh, Berlin, and another German city as puppets. I suppose I should have used the trait more... its significant in the start at least.

Got all the wonders critical for culture victory, but missed a couple extraneous wonders along the way. Got a late GE... he can't rush Utopia, right? I planned to settle him near my best production city but put him in the wrong spot. I didn't even have IW in the right spot. But these mistakes are on the order of about 5 turns. I have a lot of strategic planning I need to understand better to cut down my #turns significantly.

Spoiler :

Game status:

Culture Victory



Game date:

1943AD



Turns played:

363



Base score:

1829



Final score:

2540



Time played:

8:35:00