TSG33 After Action Report

[RedRover57]

Allying an early cultural cs is optimal for a fast finish date. But you don't need to ally 2, 3 or 4 of them after that, at least before turn 150. It's usually better to put gold in RAs.

I guess my main concern on this map with fairly aggressive neighbors was that I would get into some kind of perma-war situation with a civ that had cultural CS allies and I wouldn't be able to pick them up later. So I allied 4 cultural CS and 1 maritime as soon as I could afford it. This is why I had no gold in the early and mid game for RA's. Obviously it was not ideal for a fast time, however.

 

[MiniMe]

Another interesting calculation is the power of representation as a policy cost reducer for small empires. At two cities it's a 4.5% reduction in policy costs, at 3 it's 7.7% and at 4 it's 10.3%. So at as few as 4 cities (probably a popular number for small empires) it is already beating the piety finisher or Cristo Redentor and you can have it for almost the entire game. Obviously as your empire gets larger it gets even stronger.

Man, and I took Representation as the LAST policy in the entire game. My reasoning at the time was to start off Utopia with a Golden Age (but had plenty of other great people anyways).
Wonder how many turns I could have saved, getting it earlier At least I learned something. Thanks!

 

[S.K. Ren]

Another interesting calculation is the power of representation as a policy cost reducer for small empires. At two cities it's a 4.5% reduction in policy costs, at 3 it's 7.7% and at 4 it's 10.3%. So at as few as 4 cities (probably a popular number for small empires) it is already beating the piety finisher or Cristo Redentor and you can have it for almost the entire game. Obviously as your empire gets larger it gets even stronger.

Hmm...
If you have 1 city, then Base=115, 5/Base= 0.0435
If you have 2 cities, Base=130, 10/Base= 0.0769
If you have 8 cities, Base=220, 40/Base= 0.1818
and finally
If you have 20 cities, Base=400. 100/400= 0.2500

So it definitely loses potency despite getting better the more cities you have. At this rate it would max out at a relative 33% discount with infinite cities. I'm gonna have to revisit the number crunching thread after all this.

 

[Neuro]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-04
Your name: Neuro
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1760AD
Turns played: 262
Base score: 1579
Final score: 3036
Time played: 7:12:00

Spoiler :

My plan for this game was to build one more city on the coast for SOH and puppet the rest, and focus on finding my neighbor's capitals quickly (more on this later). I moved my warrior south, saw the coastline and decided to settle 1NE, hoping to get better land to the north along the river, since that ocean would be wasted. The warrior continued west and south, found a ruin (Animal Husbandry) and two CS. That warrior then followed the coast north, while my fresh-built scout went east and found another ruins (+1 pop). My scout found Sully and continued east, finding more CS and then England and Japan, and finally Egypt, with another ruins (map) along the way.

Spoiler :

The scout's job was to find and scout out the enemy capitals and clear the fog of war from their lands so I could keep an eye on them to see which Wonders they were working on. This helped me either focus on wonders they weren't building, or in one case motivated me to power-build a wonder to beat the enemy to it.

While the scout was doing his thing, the warrior found something interesting. He found a ruin up north (culture), the Rock of Gibraltar, and as he was exploring the northern coastline, I saw a settler, completely undefended, heading for the river mouth which was where I had my eye on building my coastal city. My first thought was 'Hahah, I'll take his settler and then rush my own settler here!' I declared war on Sully, grabbed his settler for a free worker on turn 18, then thought "Doh! I could have let him build the city there and puppeted it! Then I could build *my* coastal city over by the Wonder, Furs, and Dye!" Then I realized, if Sully went for this spot once, he might again! I just will ignore it, let him settle it again, and *then* puppet it.

Spoiler :

I moved my warrior close to his capital, found Hiawatha, and then Sully asked for peace. I accepted, and my new Turkish workforce went to work irrigating some wheat fields. =)

My first policy was Tradition, followed by Liberty and Free Settler. Normally I would take a worker first, but that wasn't such a priority at this point. I bought another warrior and escorted the settler to the northern peninsula for what is quite obviously a great city spot, even more so when I discovered the Iron there later on.

I grabbed the basic techs, then teched up to IW, with the intention of sending in a Legion force to clear of Sully and Hiawatha. By this time I had met everybody and scouted a lot of the land mass, enough to see there was a natural mountain divide splitting the continent. I figured I'd puppet this half and that should be enough to get me through.

Spoiler :

Checking the other capitals, I saw no one building any wonders, so I built Stonehenge and then the GL. I grabbed Civil Service with my free tech, and by now I had 3 warriors and had just finished Mathematics. I built a Ballista and upgraded my warriors to Legions (Florence was allied to me and gave me their iron), and marched on Sully. He had sent a second settler to the same spot as before (I'm sure you all know where) and it was up to pop 3 now. Two legions and a ballista made short work of Edirne, but it seemed Sully had built quite an arsenal of warriors and archers. I suspect in a few turns he would DoW on me; three cheers for pre-emptive strikes!

I had noticed that Istanbul was building the Great Lighthouse. Since a city with a wonder in it produces more culture, I held off capturing his city until he finished building it. I swept the area clear of his warriors, chariot archers, and archers, then ground down his city. Finally, he finished the Lighthouse and I rushed in for the win. Sully fell, and I had a 4 city (2 puppet) empire.

Spoiler :

While this was going on, after I finished GL I started on HG. I got distracted by my war with Sully, and after it was over I looked and noticed that Hiawatha was also building HG! I poured on the production and finished it before him, but by the time I finished, Egypt had started on the Oracle. I absolutely HAD to get the Oracle if I wanted to get a good time, so I chopped all the trees around me that I could and popped a Golden Age policy in order to beat Ramses to Oracle. It worked, but I suspect it was a close call. In any event, Oracle helped me finish off Piety tree.

Spoiler :

England and Egypt never got past Neutral with me, and when I killed off Sully they went Guarded. Japan liked me, at least for awhile, and Hiawatha was friendly, except he wanted less for trades than was normal, so I knew he was harboring a dislike for me. As I got close to his border, I saw that he had built a rather massive army of Mohawk warriors. I rush built another Legion and Ballista, thinking I'd need a bigger army to take him out. A few turns later, I see the mass of Iroquois warriors start heading towards me, and I know whats coming. I position my ranged in spots that are hard to get to but have a good field of fire, and screen them with the Legions. Sure enough, 4-5 turns later Hiawatha declares on me, and I spend the next thirty turns in a long complex war, where I manage to separate his forces and use the ballista and legions in tandem to clear out his forces. Hiawatha had expanded out to five cities by now, so I took his three closest (including his capital) and then he finally asked for peace. I was at 9 unhappiness by now, so I really couldn't afford to take any more of his cities anyway. I had a nice puppet empire by now anyway, and was a few turns away from completing Astronomy.

Spoiler :

Antium had been busy in the interim, building the Hagia Sophia for me, which gave it the culture bonus. I grabbed a GE with it, intending on using it for the Louvre when it was available. My capital had been building the Hermitage and the Sistine Chapel once I got Acoustics, and after the Chapel I went to work on the Porcelain Tower.

Egypt, meanwhile, had been busy. He completed the Pyramids, Chichen Izta, Angkor Wat, and the Great Wall. I thought that was a lot of wonders in a single spot, especially since they all had a continuous effect (aside from the Pyramid's 2 workers). Since going there over land would take forever, I launched my 3 Legion 2 Ballista army (2 legions had died in service to the Empire) over the northern sea, signed Open Borders with Japan and landed on Obu's northern shores, and went south to take Thebes for my own. While I was literally two turns from attacking, Egypt (who owned the smallest army) declared on Japan, who had the largest. I delayed my attack by a few turns, let Egypt's army roll past me to attack Japan, and then I charged, or rather, crawled in (darned Great Wall).

Why is it that the Great Wall works for my opponents, but it never seems to work for me? Later on, Japan's knights just ran through my lands like they were nothing.

Spoiler :

I take Thebes and then make peace with Egypt, trying to avoid too much Warmongering hate. Of course, somehow Egypt managed to build Notre Dame with Memphis, his only other city, about 3 turns before I was due to finish it, which irked me to no end. Naturally, I had to take Memphis once the peace treaty was up, but that caused it's own problems. About 5 turns after I took out Egypt, all three of the remaining civs DoW me. I allied all the CS nearby to keep them off my back, and my Legions and Ballista managed to keep Japan off of my Egyptian holdings, but Hiawatha had managed to rebuild a respectable Mohawk Warrior army again, and I had nothing up there. I had to rush build a knight and a longswordsman and run them up there to protect the empire. I turtled this war entirely, the city states took the brunt of the fighting (Especially Vienna), and eventually they accepted peace.

Spoiler :

The rest was just preparing the capital lands for the eventual UP push, and doing the overflow trick to get some more production. I think I ended up with 3 GEs, 5 GS, and 6 GAs, in the end. I know I used GEs on Louvre, Cristo, and SOH, and used GS on Archaeology, Biology, Plastics, Radio, and Mass Media, and used Oxford to get Telegraph. I only completed one RA, two others were ruined by DoW, but honestly I don't like RAs on culture games, I'd rather buy city states.

This was definitely one of the most fun games of Civ I've played in a while, mainly because of the large-scale wars I fought against Japan and Iroquois. I might do like SK and replay it, see how I can improve my gameplay. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[DaveMcW]

Link to video.

Things I learned the hard way:

• Build a stable before you replace all your pastures with landmarks.
• If Hiawatha offers you all his cities to spare his capital, accept the deal.
• Send naval support when attacking a coastal city state.
• There are not enough RAs on a small map to build Sydney Opera House, you need high or a great engineer too.

 

[Tabarnak]

or a great engineer too.
[/LIST]>Link to video.

How's that? I got 5 RAs only and finished Sydney around turn 245(or burned a ge i'm not sure). Had a high due to my 10 cities though. Watching vid now

Edit : Final score? Looks like you tied Neuro!

Edit2 : Nice, i took similar paths again. At least i'm going in the right direction. Not watched everything yet i saw first 40 turns and skipped a lot of turns until you got legalism(seems to be after archeo around turn 150).

Note to myself : Don't play cultural games drunk anymore and build Oracle dammit...>Link to video.

 

[S.K. Ren]

I might do like SK and replay it, see how I can improve my gameplay. I'll let you know how it goes.

Speaking of which if you have any opinions on things I could have or should have done differently from my write ups that you think would improve my play I'd love to hear it, I like feed back. ofc I know I need more RAs. I think I'll give it a 3rd try. This time super peaceful culture instead of warring with Hiawatha. Suleiman will still probably eat it though. He seems to do so in every game lol.

 

[Neuro]

Speaking of which if you have any opinions on things I could have or should have done differently from my write ups that you think would improve my play I'd love to hear it, I like feed back. ofc I know I need more RAs. I think I'll give it a 3rd try. This time super peaceful culture instead of warring with Hiawatha. Suleiman will still probably eat it though. He seems to do so in every game lol.

From what I can tell, you just need to be more aggressive earlier. Don't wait for longswords, get Legions and Ballista and go to town. If you watch Dave's game, he gets it done with archers and warriors (he's far better at warfare than I am), and he intentionally provokes his target, hoping they DoW on him so he doesn't take the diplo hit.

It's fascinating watching DaveMcW play, as his playstyle for culture is completely different than mine, and yet we both ended up with the same turn win.

Maybe I'll fraps #34 (unless it's a domination game, I don't enjoy those at all) and let people see how I play.

 

[Dan4GS]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-05
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1862AD
Turns played: 301
Base score: 1359
Final score: 2265
Time played: 2:46:00

Was really hoping for a sub 300 win, but I just missed it.

Still pretty incredible how good the elite players are... 40 turns faster than me and I thought I'd done pretty well. Still got work to do!

For SP's, I went all tradition (for growth), all piety, patronage opener, all freedom, rest of patronage, commerce. My capital was ~33-35 by game's end but still took 11 turns to knock out Utopia during a golden age.

Built 3 cities and puppetted 2 of Sully's. I guess if I wanted to improve my turn time I should have warred more, but I get too carried away with city building.

 

[Monthar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-05
Reference number: 26030
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1900AD
Turns played: 320
Base score: 1359
Final score: 2123
Time played: 6:59:00
Submitted save: TSG33_Cultural_Victory_T320.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C503301.Civ5Save

Map of my empire.

Spoiler :

Demographics

Spoiler :

Edit: It looks like I'm currently in 7th place. I would have finished sooner, but I forget to shift my citizens back to my landmarks for several turns after using them for production on a wonder. then, I forgot to have my workers convert the farmed hills into mines before starting Utopia.

If I'd built more military earlier I could have taken more of Hiawatha's cities when he DoW'd. I think that could have sped the policies a bit. Plus if I had more units I could have prevented him from taking Bucharest. Instead I was without Bucharest's culture input for a long time. He captured the CS when we both still had longswords and trebs and I wasn't able to take it back until I had infantry and artillery, because he has so many crossbows that he kept killing my longswords before I could get them close enough.

 

[Tabarnak]

Time played: 2:46:00

Still pretty incredible how good the elite players are... 40 turns faster than me and I thought I'd done pretty well. Still got work to do!

We just play too fast

I'm not a patient player and i know that it's one of the major flaws i have to correct for top notch finish times(excepted domination games where they are often a no brainer...used to mp though).

 

[misterjoshua]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-06
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1903AD
Turns played: 323
Base score: 936
Final score: 1462
Time played: 11:30:00

I bet I did this differently to everyone else, but it went great and I think if I was more experienced in closing out a game I could have posted a really good score.

I only settled 1 city and went with tradition, then took 3 cities off the Ottomans. If Iroquois hadn't attacked me and got bogged down in a really long war which cost me a city (until I eventually re-took it) then it would've been plain sailing.

Policies completed were Tradition, Piety, Freedom, Patronage and Commerce. I managed to get all of the important wonders in Rome. Struggled with research which slowed me down.

Fun to play, and probably my best time in a Game of the Month.

 

[Brigg]

t350 Win.

Someone remind me next time to finish Freedom ASAP instead of last. It would have cut 30+ turns off my time. Hiawatha was Spaceship 5/6 and had just built UN while sitting on 20k gold.

I never had a war past the short one with Sully.
Signed lots of RA's, but Hiawatha was a runaway near the end. I might just replay just to do a little warmongering.

 

[leif erikson]

t350 Win.

Someone remind me next time to finish Freedom ASAP instead of last. It would have cut 30+ turns off my time. Hiawatha was Spaceship 5/6 and had just built UN while sitting on 20k gold.

Looks like it was a close shave.

 

[seshat]

It was horrible. Was whiped out at turn 265... Grrr...
I'll do a replay, just for the kick.

 

[Nokmart]

My first post! I was attacked early by the Ottomans. Once I'd seen them off with the help of the Iroquois it was pretty much a cruise to victory.

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Congratulations on your first win.

 

[MiniMe]

For fun I tried a replay of my game, knowing now that I should do Representation earlier on. I founded the same no of cities and in the exact same order and location in order to try and replicate as much as possible from the original game. Of course some things went differently, I was less lucky with quests, making less friends early on.
Also, Hiawatha had Ottomans for breakfast and I did not get my two puppets early on as I did in the official game. I attacked Hiawatha a little later and took 4 cities from him. I was running into money issues and puppets quickly fixed that.
The other civs were more guarded than last time so got less RAs, but got enough to reach industrial and from there one I bulbed the necessary techs with 4 scientists and Oxford.

So my conclusion is that yes, Representation early is of course a good idea. But in order to push it further than this I would need more puppets, and from early on like all the real cool players have done.

 

[elCreepo]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-09
Reference number: 26052
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1916AD
Turns played: 336
Base score: 1167
Final score: 1741
Time played: 13:56:00

A fun game, the first time I've ever played a small map (always play standard). I thought I had an advantage since I had just finished a culture game recently but the small map definitely makes a difference strategy-wise.

Anyway, Sully DoW's early getting me two puppets, then it was pretty much peaceful until late in the game when Oda DoW'd (getting me a 3rd puppet). I built 3 of my own cities to grab up my core territory and luxuries. The AI's we're at constant war with each other of course, with Sully & Lizzy getting wiped out (by Hiawatha and Oda respectively), fortunately runaway Hiawatha stayed friendly the entire game which is good since his massive equally-teched military would have crushed my modest forces. Managed a fair number of RA's (had built the PT) and all the Cultural CS's.

Lost out on the ND and HG, which hurt my growth and probably why I didn't finish earlier in the later T200's, but got the culture victory on T336/1916AD - nowhere near the expert's finish times!

Some good points in the above posts about policies too, I think I could have taken some in a better order. And how do you guys finish in under three hours?!? My game was almost 14hours (but I like to micromanage and hmmm 'n haw over every single decision especially since you can't replay).

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 33
Date submitted: 2012-04-10
Reference number: 26058
Your name: BigChiefLizzy
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1924AD
Turns played: 344
Base score: 1295
Final score: 1904
Time played: 6:45:00
Submitted save: Augustus Caesar_0344 AD-1924.Civ5Save
Renamed file: BigChiefLizzy_C503301.Civ5Save

The Glory of Rome

Chichen Itza and Circus Maximus are out of screenshot. Got Colossus, Louvre, and Sydney opera in Antium, and great wall in Instanbul.

Think I managed policies ok, (first couple in tradition, then liberty/piety). but made a mess of the culture buildings. Had to buy temples in 3 citys to make way for free opera houses, wish I had left taking that policy till I could get museums, I didn't realise they cost so many hammers.

Due to a couple of badly timed Dow's from me I had to trade every luxury I had for poor amounts of gold (120 from hiawatha and japan, 80 from english and egypt), just to keep control of city states.

Lucky for me hiawatha didnt declare war, and stayed friendly after I torched two of his cities in the middle ages. I was pleased I finally got to upgrade my legions to longswords (and started research rifling).... then noticed his infantry on my borders

Egypt had about 20000 gold and five CS by 1800AD, then declared war. They didnt send any units, so I just declined every peace offer they made so they couldn't buy up my 5 allied CS.

Hiawatha had 2 space ship parts built when I won. Took ages to build utopia (about 28 turns, with a 50+ turn golden age thanks to spare GAs!)