TSG28 After Action Report

t130 win.

Went 2 cities and straight for chivalry and then just massed keishk and a few horsemen.
 
DOMINATION VICTORY
Turn = 112
HOF = 3331


Our Scout found the landbridge and the world, and the Keshiks followed. There is really not much more to say about this game. We first took out the Aztecs with Warriors, Horsemen and Chariot Archers, then upgraded on the way. Our forces grew to 2 Horsemen and 12 Keshiks, equally split into a first and a second brigade. We also had two brave Swordsmen but they never reached the front line. :mischief:

The first brigade went Greece-China-Siam-Arabia, the second rode all the way to Berlin. The two brigades arrived before the gates of Rome at the same time; the city then fell in a single turn. :)

Allying with Vienna (no quest, we just paid cash) gave us the culture points to complete the Liberty tree and discover Chivalry on turn 84. A culture ruins gave us an easy start, and Stonehenge was built in Tenochtitlan so that helped us as well.

Happiness was tight but not a real concern, and Karakorum finished at size 14.

Our Scout popped a lot of ruins, since both the Aztecs and Greece seemed to ignore them. Less pleasant was that Germany completed the Great Wall right when we arrived, but it didn't keep us out long.


Cities
1 Karakorum (on the river among the Wheats)
39 Beshbalik (in the west, on the hill between 2x Silver)
43 Turfan (east coast, for the Whales and Dyes)
54 Hsia (on another Wine on the west side of the mountain ridge, capturing the Spices that were out of reach of the capital).

All four cities had Horse resources.


Allies
63 Ragusa
69 Vienna
106 Stockholm

Capitals taken
80 Tenochtitlan (turn 9 of war)
93 Athens (9)
99 Beijing (4)
104 Sukhotai (4)
109 Berlin (6)
109 Mecca (3)
112 Rome(3)

Policies
6 Liberty
15 Citizenship
30 Collective Rule
54 Republic
71 Representation
84 Meritocracy
99 Honor
110 Discipline (Oracle)

Technology
Spoiler :
10 Pottery
18 Calendar (ruins) :eekdance:
23 Writing
29 Animal Husbandry
42 Philosophy
45 Mining
49 Trapping, Civil Service (Great Library)
52 The Wheel
58 Horseback Riding
60 Sailing
63 Bronze Working
64 Archery
68 Mathematics
77 Currency
81 Iron Working
82 Masonry
84 Chivalry (GS)
85 Construction
92 Engineering
93 Optics
100 Metal Casting
109 Steel


Karakorum
Spoiler :
9 Monument
13 Scout
15 Worker (policy)
18 Worker 310g
23 Granary
30 Settler (policy)
31 Warrior 200g
40 Settler
45 Settler
49 THE GREAT LIBRARY
55 Circus; Chariot Archer 260g
61 Water Mill
65 Stable
69 Barracks
72 Horseman
75 Horseman
77 Chariot Archer
79 Chariot Archer
81 Chariot Archer
83 Chariot Archer
84 Great Scientist (Liberty Tree)
89 Keshik
94 Keshik
96 Horseman
99 Horseman
102 Colosseum
110 THE ORACLE
 
Great game Ribannah! I finally got a game where i'm very close to your finish date. I have tought a lot about finishing Liberty instead of going honor. Maybe if i would have get some keshiks at Athens around turn 80 i would have finished earlier who knows...but i wanted some buffed swordmen just in case.

I'm pretty happy with my score though.
 
Finaly won, but far from being able to get close to your finish dates.

Thought a long time it was a continental game... the pangean took me by surprise.
Would have won at turn 257 or 258 as my armies were surounding my long time ally Alexander but got tired of that game (I hate playing Mongols...)
Not bad... but far from your accomplishement.:rolleyes:

Still, I learned a lot. And I think that is the goal of the games of the months. I wonder what it will be next.
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 28
Date submitted: 2012-01-26
Reference number: 25591
Your name: Beto_Java
Your email: Moderator Action: removed for security reasons.
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1974AD
Turns played: 394
Base score: 2722
Final score: 3489
Time played: 13:18:00


I got it on my first try.
Germany attacked me when I was preparing my troops for him. He launched 3 atom bombs on me when I already had taken 3 of his cities.
China almost won by culture, I killed him when there was only one branch left. :eek:

I enjoy my fisrt civ 5 GOTM and I'm waiting or the next one.
 
Great game Ribannah! I finally got a game where i'm very close to your finish date. I have tought a lot about finishing Liberty instead of going honor. Maybe if i would have get some keshiks at Athens around turn 80 i would have finished earlier who knows...but i wanted some buffed swordmen just in case.

I'm pretty happy with my score though.
You did well by catching that Aztec Settler. :)

I think it can be done a lot quicker still, though, perhaps in no more than 100 turns, by stealing some Workers (something I don't do) and have them build a road to Greece. Our Chariot Archers were slowed down considerably in those forests.
 
I got it on my first try.
Germany attacked me when I was preparing my troops for him. He launched 3 atom bombs on me when I already had taken 3 of his cities.
China almost won by culture, I killed him when there was only one branch left. :eek:

I enjoy my fisrt civ 5 GOTM and I'm waiting or the next one.

:wavey: Welcome to CivFanatics and GoTM.

Congratulations on your first win. :thumbsup:
 
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1090AD
Turns played: 170
Base score: 1070
Final score: 3242

Settled inland on river to secure better tiles. Liberty path:- 3 cities and used finisher GS to bulb Chivalry on turn 90. A force of 4 keshiks and a horseman attacked Monty on turn 91 then headed Westward to victory.

An interesting map layout, meaning I missed the landbridge beyond Athens on my initial exploration and even started building a navy for overseas conquest! I had an early scare when Monty attempted an invasion with 5 jaguars and, when I overlooked their woodland movement bonus, killed off my first two HAs. Revenge was sweet. I also lost my initial scout to barbarians. No-one else put up much of a fight and I could certainly have lopped off 10-15 turns had I divided my forces after taking Greece and China, but this one was for fun after TSG27.

Keshiks = Medieval Rocket Artillery
 

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I would like to say that I played slowly and carefully. In truth I just played slowly. I think that I just didn't build a big enough army. With more troops I could have split my force and had two spearheads, rather than the one I stuck with throughout.

Bismark also built the Great Wall in my game and I got bogged down trying to take Berlin. In retrospect it would have been better to leave Bismark until later and move on to an easier target. However, on the bright side, leaving the victory until the 20th century did allow me to build a stack of stealth bombers, which I rarely do in my other games. With ten SB's pounding the opposition, the last three Civs fell rather quickly. A pity my poor play let the others survive so long.
 
Unremarkable game compared to others... See, we all aren't warmonger experts. :sad:

Would REALLY like to see SCORE be the winning determination (as previously mentioned), at least once in a while. Still looking at later date game wins as more 'realistic' or more "immersed" in the game, then just rushing for date - and would provide some variety. ;)

By the way, loved the game, learned a lot and thanks! :goodjob:
 
Dear Monthar,
Don't give up on us, we can't leave the GOTM field entirely to the experten. Sometimes we mortals just have to stand back and admire the skill and audacity of the elite players. GOTM remains, by far, my preferred way to play CiV:- we all start equal and can learn collectively from mistakes and triumphs. For example I, like you, only found out about the science-gpt-strike balance from the Dave McW TSG27 replay. I usually ask myself three questions at the end of each GOTM:-
1. Did I enjoy it? (essential)
2. Did I play better than in the previous GOTM (preferable but optional)
3. Would I be proud to be a citizen of my Empire? (This is my personal favourite and is a much overlooked aspect of the CiV scoring system).

I will quit the day Q1 receives a No answer. My TSG28 game was YYN (The final map was not somewhere I would have liked to live, but I did enjoy creating it!)
 
Yikes! I was feeling pretty good until I saw some of these times. A fun map, as always. IIRC this is my fastest domination finish ever...I guess I'll watch one of the 'superstars' videos and see you all in a couple of weeks...

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date:1675AD
Turns played:245
Base score:1315
Final score:2683
Time played:5:37:00
 
Dear Monthar,
Don't give up on us, we can't leave the GOTM field entirely to the experten. Sometimes we mortals just have to stand back and admire the skill and audacity of the elite players. GOTM remains, by far, my preferred way to play CiV:- we all start equal and can learn collectively from mistakes and triumphs. For example I, like you, only found out about the science-gpt-strike balance from the Dave McW TSG27 replay. I usually ask myself three questions at the end of each GOTM:-
1. Did I enjoy it? (essential)
2. Did I play better than in the previous GOTM (preferable but optional)
3. Would I be proud to be a citizen of my Empire? (This is my personal favourite and is a much overlooked aspect of the CiV scoring system).

I will quit the day Q1 receives a No answer. My TSG28 game was YYN (The final map was not somewhere I would have liked to live, but I did enjoy creating it!)

I didn't enjoy TSG27 and I already wasn't happy with how slow my progress in TSG28 was. So when I saw just how ridiculously fast others were finishing 28, I knew I hadn't learned near enough to be competitive.

Comparing to just my other games, I didn't do any better than usual. Ya see, domination, especially in the early stages, is my main weakness. No matter how many videos I watch, nor how much I try to improve, I always end up losing so many units so quickly, that the AI overwhelms me and I start losing cities. Even when I try to gain a tech advantage, I still end up losing far too many units because of the ridiculous number of units the AI can spit out every turn.
 
Ya see, domination, especially in the early stages, is my main weakness. No matter how many videos I watch, nor how much I try to improve, I always end up losing so many units so quickly, that the AI overwhelms me and I start losing cities. Even when I try to gain a tech advantage, I still end up losing far too many units because of the ridiculous number of units the AI can spit out every turn.

Me too - but I tried one situation (conquering of one city with several units) many times, did saves, restart - and finally learned how to do it. There are several simple tricks as promotions, terrain, number of units - and finally you see it is not so difficult. :D
 
Turn 380 , 1960

First, thanks for the welcome back, Leif!

I loved Gotm when I had C3, skipped C4, and now Im back! Will be happy when the "training games" period is over, but eh they play the same. I'm always amazed by the
quick finishes. IIRC it took about a dozen C3 GotM before I learned enough tricks to be competitive.

So , quick summary:
I did not realize we are all on one continent til near the end.
I had a bit of trouble attacking Alex, so figured to save him for last. Explored east; Took out Cape Town as a nice base to go for Rome, Arabia, or Germany. Also pleased my ally, Florence.

Next city east was Cumae (in German hands). I annexed it to build units there. A quick detour to Rome, sold it to Siam. Arabia captured it from him very quickly, despite my gifting an infantry to Ram to hold it with.

Had a bit of trouble trying to take Berlin (G had the Wall in my Game), he had so many $%#$%!^! artillery. I puppeted the German colony by our local meteor Crater, then made peace with Biz on the sole condition we both war Arabia, who was seriously starting to runaway.

Took all the Arabian cities down the west coast, the 4 th was Mecca, got ridiculous $$ for Peace. Took out Bucharest to get some U238, by now most CSs are permanent war with me, still have Flo and Quebec on my side.

Bought 3 Atomic Bombers and a nuke plant, easily smacked Germany with them and a few bought units, while my main army in Bucharest took Shanghai then Beijing for the win.
(China had already taken Bangkok around 1940, Germany had wiped out Alex shortly before the win.)

SPs: finished Lib , Honor , philanthropy from patronage, all but soverignty from rationalism (mainly for the happiness, but sci was a big factor too)
Wonders: just way too many I guess

Just got the game for Christmas, and I always play:
Emperor, All Random.
I'm 4 for 10 :D

Totally not used to having Air Superiority either.
Thanks for the game, mods, and the strats, posters! :goodjob:
 
I tried Snarzberry's strat (thank you for posting that in the announce thread), and had 6 keshiks by t95. Forgot that ranged units cannot capture cities, though. So had to wait for a warrior to arrive. I built 2 cities... and took both aztec cities. Monte was going wonder-crazy, so I got a lot of ww's for free. :D

The rest was slogging it out and trying to stay above -10:mad: .

My biggest mistake was thinking I would bypass Alex and Bismark, hitting them on the way back. So I went through Greece and took out China's capitol. Razed a few more and kept one more. Next was Rome. Then I went after Ramalamadingdong... which is where I really went wrong. Those war elephant knights are murder. Alex gets angry and OB is cancelled. Bismarck DOW's me. Anyhow I was this close (fingers held up a centimeter apart) from taking Ramalama's capitol, but he holds out. I have to take peace for peace because I cannot reinforce. Buy a bunch of units in Roman cities (puppeted until revolt ends, then annexed and courthoused). Kill bismark (Berlin) with cannons (he still has mainly landskneckt). Only Arabs will trade with me... but they have no happy resources. A couple RA's is all that's worth. Alex is at war with me, but my mongol and aztec cities can easily hold his forces off.

Then I get artillery and its a rampage. With combat graphics finally disabled, I enjoy using artilly as if it is a "delete" button for enemy units. Those Rama war elephants were murder until arties, tbh. Then I take the Rama capitol, and burn a path through to connect with my chinese forces and burn a path straight to Athens. Could have taken more cities, but didn't want the unhappy, since I attacked Mecca with minimum number of units left behind. Athens falls, next turn Mecca falls. Game over.

I went Liberty to the finisher to get Keshiks so early. Then I went Honor through to the finisher, then commerce and finally Order which helped the happyness a lot. The Honor finisher was quite useful, as I always had plenty of gold to upgrade and rush units.

I don't know how you guys cover the whole map in 112 turns, but I can see how taking capitols is a lot easier if you do not let them set up a bunch of cities around it. Alex should have been killed earlier, I think. It would have been easy, and kept my supply routes open. I was using Civ4 thinking in that he's close so I can save him for later and not lose movement time. That seems to be bad strategy in Civ5. Oh... and don't upgrade ALL your horsemen to keshiks... save at least one to follow along and take the cities you mutilate with keshiks.:rolleyes:

Anyhow, I won't submit because I did reload from the start after playing about 40turns and realizing that I didn't follow the correct tech path for the early keshiks that I really really wanted to play with. I'm not competitive with most of the Civ5 players here anyhow, so not submitting isn't that much of a punishment to take. (Note, to be fair, besides the tech path, I played everything the same in the second run... I didn't do it to take advantage of hidden resource placement... I anyhow got pretty lucky with that the first time through (SIP).


I had fun... domination is one of my weaker game elements, but this strategy made it quite manageable.

Hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did! :king:
 
So, after dropping it and playing tropico for a week after my horde got to Rome only to meet artillery (see whinging here) I came back, fought a series of wars that cleaned out all the little German colonies so I could get units to the front, got peace with the Thais, and fought a long stalemate war with Rome, until finally he launched all his rocket artillery on a sightseeing tour and stopped building fighters, at which point I got a stealth bomber wing together and did it that way.

So, I was wrong about there not being a second chance. Took a long time to turn it around, but it worked. And I have learned my lesson: don't stop making units because they're boring and you want to build wonders. I'm really hoping to have the slowest time, because high numbers are good.
 
So, I was wrong about there not being a second chance. Took a long time to turn it around, but it worked. And I have learned my lesson: don't stop making units because they're boring and you want to build wonders.
:goodjob: How to hang in there! :hammer:
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 28
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 125AD Turns played: 120
Base score: 711 Final score: 2962

I got off to a quick Liberty start, with an early Culture ruin, Built three cities, the capital in the hills to get spices, wine, and extra hammer. one to get dye and whales, and one close to Aztecs to get the Silver and horses there.
GL by T56.
Monte DoWs me at T52. I let him suicide on my silver city for a while, and I get his capital T66.
I've got about 9 or 10 units, mostly warriors and archers, only a couple chariot archers and one horseman. Make peace with Aztecs and they all march on Athens. it's T83 by the time they all get there and I declare war.
Meanwhile, the teching has gone well, I finish the Oracle turn 82, which completes the Liberty tree, and take the GS to bulb Chivalry.
I buy my first Keshik in the (former) Aztec capitol T82, but I have to finish off Athens with old units. Athens goes down T86, and I upgrade a few units there to Keshiks.

After that my game was slower than it could it have been. Had two armies, one took out China Thai, Arabs, the other Germany and Rome. I know I was slow at the end because Rome and Mecca didn't go down to horsemen, but to foot-soldiers! I think I should have built more chariot archers earlier in the game.
Also probably should have skipped taking out a few of non-capital cities (one Chinese, one Thai, and one German), and just went straight for their capitals. Oh, and I also took out Sparta which I probably should have bypassed too, since I already had Athens. But Keshiks make it so easy, it's hard to pass up taking out a city! I ended up selling a couple of those cities to Greece and the Aztecs before the game ended (to help manage the :mad: factor).

Cool game Leif, thanks!
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 28
Date submitted: 2012-02-05
Reference number: 25645
Game status: Science Loss
Game date: 2038AD
Turns played: 478
Base score: 1519
Final score: 1519
Time played: 8:16:00
Renamed file: flp_ndrox_C502801.Civ5Save

Yup, I submitted a loss. Why? For statistical purposes and to support a game of the month at a difficulty level a regular person (not a civfanatic =D) can actually not get killed. I've just recently discovered that Sulla was overstating how population can be a problem, it's really more of a necessary evil, so I'm trying to move up levels. With an above average start I can handle king...with a tech victory. I don't remember the last time I played a standard sized map...or got a domination victory (think it was before horses got nerfed, fwiw), so I thought this would be a good challenge for me. I was right. I learned so much about the holes in my game: Early war, schizophrenic tech tree decisions, lack of ability to wage war without tech superiority, tendency to overbuild buildings and resulting econ struggles, issues exploiting diplo AI, etc.

Here are my notes that I was going to post in the in progress thread, where I make observations on how the game is going, organized by turn number. You fanatics can look at it as a window into the mind of a merely above average regular ;-)

1 - Sent warrior along the river, settle in place, go for calendar to get the lux happiness bonuses for all the cities I'm gonna conquer.

4 - Crap! Monty! Need Warriors STAT!

17 - Tenochtitlan looks takeable, lotsa flat land for the sieges.

28 - That's all the more horses I get?!?

29 - Hmm, Monty didn't explore west?

61 - No nearby Iron?!? What am I supposed to do now?

66 - Aztec horses force me off my defensive line west of Hanoi, regroup.

75 - reestablish that defensive line...wait, are those swordsmen? At least that mean he's got all the Jags he'll ever get.

76 - AI builds GL

77 - first golden age! Yay!

96 - Re-re-establish that same defensive line.

97 - finally founded a city for that Iron, OK, it's go time...once I get sieges.

98 - Got Kublai Khan (he remained my sole working GG, as the rest were turned in for GAs, until his defeat at the siege of Athens in the Great German War)

106 - There's Silver and Iron west of Monty, and he's just leaving it. [insert joke about the AI]

127 - Capital potentially saved by a pirate ship taking out an embarked pikeman. I suppose I'll let him live for that. :)

142 - things are quiet, it's settler time!

167 - It's Keshik time!

170 - My first real offensive begins.

172 - Hi, Alex, nice to see someone besides Monty...I guess...

175 - Teo falls, my first city capture.

181 - Assault on Tenochtitlan begins

185 - Tenochtitlan falls

190 - Otto! Finally someone to trade with. I've never been so happy to see the Germans.

215 - Finish mopping up the Aztecs. Mexico has a lot of Iron and horses, and there's only one way to go: West. Time to tech up and take out Alex. Per Diplo screen, Otto seems to be getting the better of "Octo".

222 - Taj goes to the AI. So, looks like guns should be in AI hands. I don't have guns.

224 - A paranoid Alex DoWs me as the game announces "Sharpest Spears". I'm 3rd, he's 6th. Well, all right, then. Guess I won't be taking out Hanoi and Florence any time soon, since the Keshiks are riding west.

238 - Otto is in the industrial Era, and the Porcelain tower is built by the AI. Wow, am I behind.

250 - City States have rifles now, so no attacking them.

251 - Greetings, China! Here, let's trade lux and get a research agreement.

257 - After fighting across the Isthmus of Argos, and beginning the assault on Cornith, I find Renaissance era German troops attacking Sparta. Looks like it's a race to Athens, then.

263 - Corinth falls, on to Athens. Welcome, Arabia, can you do me a solid, trade with me, and keep Germany busy?

264 - Bad news for Alex, Sparta falls to the Germans, Athens falls to me. Down to one cruddy city, I decide to let him live as a pet civ to keep from getting the warmonger penalty.

270 - Statue of Liberty to the AI. So that's Infantry, right? At least I have muskets now, huh? Germany busy fighting China and Arabia. I settle in defensive position in the hills west of Athens and try to catch up on tech.

280 - I've managed to stay friends with Otto, which is good since he has infantry and I am not even close. During exploration of Germany via open borders, I find Augustus, and get my trading on. He has coal. I can believe I'm still this surprised how behind I am.

284 - As anticipated, Germany declares war. At least I have rifles and cannons in good defensive position around Athens. Germans have the great wall half a world away.

290 - Germany has a Luftwaffe. I have NO navy. Good night.

296 - Bejing falls to the Germans. Maybe if I can find Berlin I can steal it?

300 - #2 Army, which is good. Germany's is *4* times more powerful, which is bad.

Basically it keeps going like this. Germany rolls their side, I manage to make any incursions into Greece painful. Eventually German Artillery kills the rifleman holed up in the hills next to Athens. That was the key poisition and Athens falls, costing me the GG. I fall back to Argos, and set up a carpet of death by artillery there. Then we hit the stalemate. I can't out tech him to get enough weapons to force him back, and he can't get past me. Yay for stereotypical German stubbornness and lack of naval support. He conquers what he can and then decides to go for a Diplo victory. Makes sense, since at one point he has almost 100k Gold. But he never makes an offer to peace without territorial concessions in both Mexico and Mongolia, I never take the deal. I manage to keep Hanoi as an ally, which keeps them peace blocked so he can't buy them off of me and getting the final vote necessary for the diplo win.

Toward the end, things got weird. When he came for me with 2 GDRs (only second time I've seen the AI with them), I nuked them. I know he had nukes (seen the fallout), but he never nuked me. Which is weird, nukes are MADE for killing Carpets of Doom. I think he went tech win since he figured he couldn't roll me or buy Hanoi.
 
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