TSG30 After Action Report

leif erikson · Feb 18, 2012

Patch version ver 1.0.1.511 has been released.

Alan is checking on the save file's compatibility. If you have a problem uploading through the submission system, please post here . :thanx:

edit - update:

2K Greg said:
Hey guys,

Earlier today, a build of Civilization V that was meant for our QA department mistakenly got released as a patch for Civilization V. We have since rolled back the patch. Sorry about getting you all excited for a new patch, but this thing definitely needs more time in the oven before we release it. Those of you who did fire up the game during the accidental window should consider yourselves treated to a sneak peek of things to come

edit2 - further update: for those that got the patch by mistake.

PieceOfMind said:
Thanks for letting us know. Is there a way to "remove" the patch without re-downloading the game or re-installing from a backup?

2K Greg said:
The game should roll back to its previous version automatically, exactly the same as a patch is normally applied. Sometimes the patches don't go out to all users at the exact same time, and I believe restarting Steam should kick-start it in to making sure it's up to date.

Let me know if that seems to not be the case and I'll follow up.

Sprenk · Feb 18, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-18
Your name: Sprenk
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1936AD
Turns played: 356
Base score: 626
Final score: 881

Feeble. But I learned a lot.

bluexmas · Feb 18, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-18
Reference number: 25736
Your name: bluexmas
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1905AD
Turns played: 325
Base score: 877
Final score: 1349
Time played: 2:55:00
Submitted save: TSG30_Start.Civ5Save
Renamed file: bluexmas_C503001.Civ5Save

First file submission, though I've been playing along with these for some time. I got a little lazy at times because after I puppeted Darius, no one came to the Island for the rest of the game. Sometimes I need tougher competition to inspire me to greatness. Or something like that. Biggest mistake was only building one city (and one that wasn't on the coast at that). While I had great science from the observatory and some academies, I was severely hampered in my exploration of the map (and in making CS allies). Given the handicap of my stupidity in this game, I think it turned out ok.

leif erikson · Feb 18, 2012

bluexmas said:
First file submission, though I've been playing along with these for some time.

Congrats on your win :thumbsup:

and welcome to GOTM. :wavey:

TyfoonTurk · Feb 18, 2012

turn 323, no allies and 3 cities

Brigg · Feb 18, 2012

Turn 316
I settled 2 cities and took no puppets.
I topped out at 723 culture, with 9 GA settled.
I harassed Persia a couple times, mainly stealing the 5 workers.

Zilkin · Feb 19, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-19
Reference number: 25746
Your name: Zilkin
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1920AD
Turns played: 340
Base score: 1187
Final score: 1745
Time played: 2:56:00

My first ever Civ 5 GoTM, and only I've played couple it times on Civ 4 either. Was also my first Civ 5 culture victory ever so I basically had no idea what I was doing except to only have few cities (4 + 1 puppet) and search the tech tree for which wonders to aim for.

My biggest mistake was forgetting to actually change my cities to culture focus until almost at the end :lol:

having remembered that would have at least let me win in the 19th century. I also should have explored the whole world sooner to find all the city states.

Basically I met Persia almost immediatly, and having explored to island I decided it wasn't big enough for the both of us. So I started war using hoplites and archers razing, puppeting and capturing on city each. Persia fell without almost any resistance. After that it was just building lots of wonders and getting as much gold as possible for the bribes and pressing the next turn button till the end. I had huge tech lead the whole game which allowed me to easily secure all the wonders I wanted. Thats about it was fun for sure and hopefully this ain't the first and last Civ GoTM for me!

clint0601 · Feb 19, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-19
Your name: clint0601
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1858AD
Turns played: 299
Base score: 971
Final score: 1645
Time played: 2:10:00

Looking at everyone else's games, I'm proud of my sub-300 win (Barely! I was lucky that my CSs got coal so i could rush a factory while finishing the utopia)

Used Legalism for Broadcast Towers, i went 3 Liberty => Piety => Patronage => 2 Liberty => Freedom => Tradition. Using Legalism at the end was awesome

leif erikson · Feb 19, 2012

Zilkin said:
Thats about it was fun for sure and hopefully this ain't the first and last Civ GoTM for me!

Thank you for joining us. Glad you enjoyed it. Welcome to GOTM :wavey:

And a win makes it all that much better, congrats.

IR0NMIKE · Feb 19, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-19
Your name: IR0NMIKE
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1896AD
Turns played: 318
Base score: 823
Final score: 1306
Time played: 3:16:00
-------------
Started with 2 cities early, in hindsight a 3rd when I hit legalism for the oprahouse would have shaved off time....and buying military states after culture and maritime as they would have contributed to science production..

Never did go to war with Persia, just blocked border early.

With steam power none of the CS were giving out their coal - darn environmentalists. I sent the Coal Miner's Union local 100 with a convincer to Ragusa and soon there was plenty of coal.

Grifftavian · Feb 19, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-19
Your name: Grifftavian
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1993AD
Turns played: 413
Base score: 929
Final score: 1132

Settled in place. Most of game was with 3 Cities + 3 Puppets. Only one early war with Darius to claim the home continent. Razed his second city so I could build Sparta next to the horses. Made a mistake by razing another of his cities, which would have been a 4th Puppet.

Social Policies: Took Tradition opener as first SP, and Oligarchy next. Then took Honor opener and a couple of Honor SPs to help with the fight against Darius. Finished the remaining Tradition SPs, then took all of the Patronage SPs, which help with being allies with all of the Cultural City States in the game. I took the Freedom opener next, followed by Honor/Professional Army before starting on Piety, which may have been a mistake (not starting Piety sooner).

Balibar · Feb 20, 2012

I researched Sailing first. I built scout then monument. I hit 3 ruins getting Mining with the first one, upgrade of my scout to archer with the second and a population increase with the third. I had hoped for a culture ruin on the island. At turn 20 I considered 3 different lines. The first line was to research optics and go for ruins to catch up on techs in other lines. The second line was to build a trireme then the Great Lighthouse, but research to masonry. The third line was to build a trireme then a settler in order to have 3 quick cities and block Darius.

The best option was to build a trireme then Great Lighthouse. I declared war on Darius when I spotted his first settler and stole the settler and another worker. I killed his warrior but nothing else happened in that war. He asked for peace giving me everything, which was open borders, his money and his gold production. He had no resources at that point.

I settled the coastal hill near the horses for Sparta with the settler from Liberty and built a settler after Great Lighthouse and settled on the spice to the East of Athens for Corinth. This blocked Darius from settling any more cities.

My trireme discovered Civs which I sold resources to and, more importantly, the city states. 30 gold per discovery adds up. I allied first with the two CS to the West of my island which, fortuitously, were culture and friendly. One of them had horses and one had 6 iron which came in handy.

Policy Choices: Tradition Opener then Liberty which I completed. I used Legalism after I researched Philosophy to get the free temples. Whether it would have been better to wait until museums were enabled, I don't know, but the boost to culture was very helpful at a time that city production was very low and I did not yet have cash to get lots of city states. I eventually completed Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Patronage and Freedom.

Surprisingly, Darius remained friendly after the first war and he was late developing his own resources. I got good cash from him. Ottoman was also friendly in the early game. I was hoping that Darius would settle the 1-tile island north of his capital, but he didn't. I finished him off with 4 companion calvary and 1 swordsman. My archer chipped in 1 point of damage. He had defense 15 so it was close. After the DOW, I positioned each calvary 3 tiles away and my sword and archer 4 tiles away. I moved each calvary up 2, attacked, then retreated 2 out of range. After the first round, I moved the swordsman up to 2 tiles away and, likewise, the archer. My swordsman took 3 damage from his city. The second round lost one calvary, but the swordsman took the city. It was very close and 1 more HP might have been a complete failure.

After I eliminated Darius, everyone did not like me except Monty who became friendly and remained so for the rest of the game. It would have been much better had Darius settled the 1 tile island, so I would not have eliminated him, but he took forever to research optics.

I maintained my culture at fewer than 10 turns to next policy throughout the game. I left a great engineer for the Utopia Project, but apparently they don't do UP. I think I could have been quicker to ally with the maritime CS which would have shaved some turns off the finish. I think I would have been better off getting all my CS allies before doing RAs, but I mixed it up. I think I could have had better choices in my Policy progression. I had mixed feelings between Freedom and Commerce for my 5th line and I am not sure that Freedom was better. The extra naval travel and +3 boost to production to each coastal city (all of them) would have helped.

I got Steam achievements for completing Piety and Patronage and my first win with Alex.

I won't submit the game and I am not eligible for any recognition, because I completed a line that was not my first choice and violated that no-replay rule. However, nobody else pursued sailing early and the Great Lighthouse and I believe that sailing was the best choice. I would like to see what others think on this strategy.

Balibar

leif erikson · Feb 20, 2012

Welcome to GOTM.

Balibar said:
I won't submit the game and I am not eligible for any recognition, because I completed a line that was not my first choice and violated that no-replay rule. However, nobody else pursued sailing early and the Great Lighthouse and I believe that sailing was the best choice. I would like to see what others think on this strategy.

for your honesty. :thumbsup:

Nibs. · Feb 20, 2012

Hi there! First time poster and I'd just like to say thanks for doing GOTM as its given the game a new lease of life for me (I've worked my way back to GOTM 15). Thought I'd actually join in now I've caught up with all the previous entries.

I'm a firm believer in culture being a science game to broadcast towers / Sydney / Christo, generally followed by 50 turns of pressing the turn button. Actually I'm a firm believer in every type of game being a science game for the first part. For culture you'll ideally want everything set up at the end science point which would require two GE's for Sydney/Christo and possibly saving the tradition policy of culture buildings for broadcast towers.

I thought that warlord would mean little money for research agreements so the game would probably need to be heavy on scientists and given the civ (Greece), city state play would be important.

Given heavy scientist production and a culture win the capital would need to be on the coast and next to a river/lake for Sydney/gardens. Next to a mountain would be good too (Observatory) so the warrior was moved east of the gold to check if another mountain was next to it (and a lake). Unfortunately this wasn't the case so the only realistic place to settle was SE next to the lake and on the coast.

Game

Spoiler :

There are lots of things that could of shaved some turns off. One more RA would of got me a Nuclear Plant (I had Uranium on my territory) for the final Utopia. Also I started my culture buildings really late. I kind of meandered towards the culture techs too, I probably didn't need Trebuchets for instance.

Not sure about Patronage either. Most of my city states didn't come until well after turn 150. The Paris experiment was a massive waste of gold. Had I tried something like that much earlier it may have benefited me but it was simply too late in the game. I was also surprised at how easy gold was to come by this game. I was pretty poor while waiting for iron to arrive from Warsaw so I could attack Darius, I probably should of just settled the continent myself and got some gold.

Versatile · Feb 20, 2012

Code:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-20
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date:	1915AD
Turns played: 335
Base score:	482
Final score:	719
Time played: 1:45:00

Played OCC, no war whatsoever.

Probably could have finished a lot earlier had I not completly forgotten about SH, but hey, what can you do.

Trystero · Feb 20, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-20
Reference number: 25765
Your name: Trystero
Your email:
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 634
Final score: 960
Time played: 4:23:00
Submitted save: Alexander_0330 AD-1910.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Trystero_C503001.Civ5Save

A 2 City Challenge. Settled 2E and built Sparta on the North coast. No wars whatsoever. Bulbed my way to Archeology. Took Liberty, Tradition, Piety, Patronage, and Freedom as my SP trees. Probably should have focused on generating GAs for Landmarks earlier and found more cultural CS (only explored with one frigate).

tomaalimosh · Feb 21, 2012

Game: Civ5 GOTM 30
Date submitted: 2012-02-20
Reference number: 25768
Your name: tomaalimosh
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1906AD
Turns played: 326
Base score: 1246
Final score: 1916
Time played: 6:21:00
Submitted save: Alexander_0326 AD-1906.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tomaalimosh_C503001.Civ5Save

Played a very peaceful game. Only attacked Darius to steal his third settler, and then accepted peace immediately. Began to get CS-s only later. That probably set me back, because most CS's that were close were cultured.

nthexwn · Feb 21, 2012

@Nibs: Holy cow, now that's a report! Do you keep a record as you play or somesuch? I've only ever bothered with screenshots.

Anyway... I must confess to viewing the game in progress thread as soon as I'd opened the save file. I figured it might help me plan my game out in advance. I imagine this is what all the top players have been doing for a while now, but in hindsight it doesn't seem like fair play. Perhaps there should be a rule instated that we can't view the game in progress thread until we're at least 100 turns in? I suppose it's all on the honor system anyway, but I think it'd be good to have an official rule so that we're not tempted to look ahead like this. It worked too well.

At any rate, seeing how the game was progressing for others led me to an extremely unorthodox opening strategy, which ended up paying back in dividends. Here are the key ideas:

I settled on the gold directly northeast of the starting tile. I used to avoid building cities on hills, since they couldn't get a windmill later on. However, after comparing starts in several games, I've learned that the early production bonus from hill tiles easily offsets this, since the windmill comes into play too late to make a substantial difference in a game's outcome. Early production, however, is HUGE. I learned from watching DaveMcW's video of the last GOTM that he forces production focus to the point of starvation early on, even with just a few citizens. Extra production for those first few units and structures (particularly the granary, which pays back directly in food lost for every turn gained) really is that important. I now try to settle my starting city on a hill if at all possible for this boost. The gold resource bonus upon discovering mining was merely a nice addition.
In the game in progress thread, Mike678 mentioned that Darius had rapidly expanded to 4 cities. As a result, I decided I'd just capture these cities instead of building my own. This led me to skip the liberty tree entirely, and to focus on tradition instead. True to those predictions, Darius popped his 4th city around turn 80, and by turn 90 I was capturing all of his stuff with companion cavalry and hoplites. Not having founded any cities of my own meant that policies were super cheap throughout the entire game.
Since going tradition requires getting legalism very early, I decided not to build a monument right off the bat like the top players often do, and to use my 2nd policy for the free monument instead. No saving up for opera houses or broadcast towers or anything fancy like that. Just 1 single monument at the beginning.
Since I wasn't going legalism, and wouldn't be getting the free worker, I decided to start off by building one instead. Normally a worker opening is a pretty bad idea, since the worker can't improve any resources until you've researched the improvements, and you sacrifice early scouting information in doing so. However, since the starting island was small enough for the warrior to explore all on its own, this ended up not being much of a sacrifice at all, and I got a few extra food while I was waiting.
Rather than the traditional great library start, I opted to go directly to sailing. There were a couple of reasons for this. The most important one was to reach other civilizations as quickly as possible in order to sell resources (namely the early gold from the hill tile). France ended up being my first buyer, since Darius was broke. This allowed me to get an early start with the cultural city states, which seem to be quite important for culture games. The other reason for sailing was also money related. Since nobody else had ships early, I was able to wrack up 30 gold from nearly every city-state on the map in a matter of a couple dozen turns. This took place much quicker with triremes than it would have on a land map, since you get twice as many moves per turn.
My initial build order went like this: Worker->Granary->Trireme->Trireme->Stone Works->Great Library->Temple->Pyramids(for 2 cultural city-state missions)->Stables->4x Companion Cavalry->???->Profit. National College, the Oracle, the Hagia Sophia, and a couple of hoplites came soon after this, but I forget the specific order.
I still wanted the great library, but by delaying it a bit longer (hey, this is warlord after all, so there's no hurry), I was able to shoot straight into the medieval era by popping compass. Getting to the medieval era was hugely important, since cultural city-state bonuses double once you're there. The same is true for the industrial era, though by that point your cities' cultural output is finally high enough to start rivaling that of the city-states.
Reiterating this last point, ALL of my early gold went into allying the cultural city states as early as possible. The culture you get from city-states dwarfs that of your own cities early on.
On that note, Stonehenge was entirely unnecessary, as it only produces a fraction of what I was already getting by this point. Besides, Montezuma had already built it anyway.
As soon as I hit the classical era, I started sinking my points into piety until that tree was finished. The 10% bonus that you get for the entire branch gets compounded over the next 25 or so policies that you need, so it becomes quite beneficial to knock it out as early as possible. Finishing the last policy in tradition early for the growth bonus was tempting, but I believe bee-lining piety was more important for overall time.
Science actually doesn't seem to be as important for culture as I'd thought. After playing several culture games, it seems like you'll finish long before the Sydney Opera house if you're speedy, and that Cristo Redentor and broadcast towers only come into play for your last 2-3 policies, so they'll only shave off a couple of turns each. What's much more appealing is to use a few research agreements to reach opera houses as quickly as possible, pop a couple of great scientists/Oxford to get to museums, abandon the foreign relations/research path, declare war on everybody, and use the puppeted cities to create more culture instead. And on that note, here are some screenshots of the spoils:

Greece/Persia:

Spoiler :

Egypt:

Spoiler :

France:

Spoiler :

Aztec Empire:

Spoiler :

I still feel dirty about looking ahead like I did. I'm still pretty proud of how my strategies worked out here, but they were based on a few bits of information that I wouldn't have had access to on my own. Leif, feel free to disqualify this entry if you see fit, but know that I'm probably not the first (or last) person to 'exploit' the game in progress thread this way. :-/

mike678 · Feb 21, 2012

Yea I don't think looking ahead should be allowed. I personally put a map of the entire island in that thread so its easy to plan exactly what you want to do. Plus I think you learn less if you see what others have done (before you try it your self) because it will bias your opinion and you will do something you normally wouldn't do without foresight. I'm not saying nthexwn cheated but I think there should be a rule against doing that.

Monthar · Feb 21, 2012

nthexwn said:
Anyway... I must confess to viewing the game in progress thread as soon as I'd opened the save file. I figured it might help me plan my game out in advance. I imagine this is what all the top players have been doing for a while now, but in hindsight it doesn't seem like fair play. Perhaps there should be a rule instated that we can't view the game in progress thread until we're at least 100 turns in? I suppose it's all on the honor system anyway, but I think it'd be good to have an official rule so that we're not tempted to look ahead like this. It worked too well.

There sort of is, for at least the first 60 to 80 turns anyway.

leif erikson said:
Please use this thread to discuss your goals for the game and your opening moves through about the first 60 to 80 turns.

TSG30 After Action Report

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