TSG37 After Action Report

[Half Nelson]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1580AD
Turns played: 227
Base score: 864
Final score: 1920

My best TSG effort so far, very pleased with outcome. Settled on SW cotton. Went Liberty and dropped second city on riverside coast cotton to W. Oda declared around turn 35 and invaded with 4 warriors and an archer:- he killed my warrior and things looked a bit nasty for a couple of turns (Beijing health in amber), but bought 2 archers to see him off for a nice peace deal. Completed GLib and built settler, but by then my preferred City-3 site (riverside hill/mountain to S) had been taken by Oda so I settled it further south on coast for pearls. There was little scope for further settling due to the crowded continent, so I trod the standard tech path and when iron appeared, I upgraded my 2 new warriors to Swords and captured the Japanese city (Osaka) on MY SPOT! (Oda had the GW by then, but 4 archers and a GG supporting my Swords were adequate). Met most other AI early and laid down lots of RA using my numerous luxuries. When LS and CKN were available, I moved on Oda's capital then further South. Persia (already at war with Japan / Iroquios) DOW on me at that time, which worked out well in terms of me grabbing puppets from conquered cities without causing annoyment or needing to make any DoW. I annexed Osaka to produce a nice 4-city / 3-puppet empire then settled down to watch the carnage erupting elsewhere. I had DoF with Arabia virtually the whole game, also Iroquois and England from Medieval. No further wars, lots of trading, exploring and causing confusion amongst my competitors with judiciuos war bribes. I completed Apollo on turn 208, bulbed the remaining techs and built parts in all 4 cities (which all had factories etc by then).

I hadn't fully appreciated the strengths of China (except for CKN), until this game:- Paper Makers help greatly with early cash and the GG bonuses are a great boon for early wars with a small army.

 

[Tabarnak]

Half Nelson! Your games are always better from week to week.

 

[Half Nelson]

Thanks Tabarnak. I wish I had saved a picture of Beijing under siege from Oda around turn 35:- I was very close to an early exit! I have made a lot of progress with my Science / Culture games but Domination especially is still a struggle sometimes. Realising that I could manually select tech research order (took me until TSG 34 I think:- doh!) was a major step forward, cutting 15-20 turns off my last couple of games. The amount of misdirected research overflow I produced prior to then does not bear thinking about. Much more to learn with G&K very shortly.

Thanks also to Leif for a great setup.

 

[Brigg]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 37
Date submitted: 2012-06-10
Reference number: 26436
Your name: Brigg
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1795AD
Turns played: 269
Base score: 1007
Final score: 1900
Time played: 5:33:00
Submitted save: Briggtsg37_0269 AD-1795.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Brigg_C503701.Civ5Save

First file I have ever bothered submitting, my quickest science victory by far.
My best decision in the game was to sell Tokyo to Persia after Japan's second DoW.
The 700g+ gave me the units to fight off, the conquer most of Japan.

 

[Attaturk]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 37
Date submitted: 2012-06-10
Reference number: 26437
Your name: Attaturk
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1420AD
Turns played: 202
Base score: 803
Final score: 2007
Time played: 3:59:00

Settled in place. Unusual thing I tried is to go straight for archery, build two archers and try to get lucky with upgrade huts. Didn't pan out. Though archers proved very useful to defend against Oda.

Settled second city between the rivers capturing all 4 sugars. After NC was build, I settled my 3rd and final city on the south coast between horses and cows.

After 3rd or 4th war with Japan (Oda started all of them, naturally), I took two of his cities, Osaka and Kyoto. Annexed Kyoto to build 1 booster.

Policies: Liberty opener, Settler, Worker, Golden Age, Road Bonus, Rationalism opener
At the end, to speed up last scientists opened Freedom

Science: archery - pottery - writing - AH - calendar - philosophy - (GL) - Theology -Mining - Masonry - Wheel - Sailing - Civil Service - Education - Optics - (GS) - astro

Found one hut, boosted bejing from 2 to 3 pop.

First worker stolen from city state
Second worker from liberty
Third worker bought for 310g

Befriended a maritime city state Helsinki around turn 60

Later got cultural Warsaw

Lizzy was kind enough to stop so I got an early RA going with her too.

Nice research speed with 6 trading partners. Oda and Darius kept declaring on me so I didn't bother signing up with them.

DoF Hiawatha and Harun. Eventually Hiawatha nearly killed Harun, I even considering donating Osaka to Harun to save my RA with him, but Harun was able to survive on its own.

Army:

original warrior went swiming
built 4 archers (lost one), became 3 CKH
built 1 warrior upg to sword upg to Longsword
built 1 musketeer
built 1 caravel

RA schedule. (Turns when RA's landed, -31 for start turn)
086 education [not an RA, just a good milestone. I usually sign first RA 4-5 turns prior to education]
112 harun
113 khan
114 hia

129 liz (thanks for stopping by)

134 rus
137 siam

143 harun
144 khan
145 hia

160 liz
165 rus
168 siam

174 harun (not renewed)
175 khan (not renewed)
176 hia (not renewed)

191 liz (last useful RA)
196 rus (wasted)
199 siam (wasted)

 

[TyfoonTurk]

t237,

beelined GL, settled three cities before nc, built universities and public schools as soon as available, with water mills, observatories and workshops and markets

early war with oda, pupetted one city with 2 swords and some archers.

after oda, darius broke a ra, and i pupetted 2 more cities

midgame/endgame harun declared and i took tokio an damascus as my treat

 

[Tabarnak]

Nice research speed with 6 trading partners. Oda and Darius kept declaring on me so I didn't bother signing up with them.

I couldn't keep the pace with 6 partners. I didn't have enough money when the time had come to sign or simply because they didn't have a single coin(had to pay 250x2 +100 gold to keep a 6th one). It's definitively important to stay at 6 RAers to have a chance to go below 200.

With the ''must be friendly'' status for RAs with G&K, the importance of staying low profile will be amplified. Wars will actually really cripple your research...or not? We will see later.

 

[subber]

failed to win in first try - settled in the middle of the rivers, very nice starting location. planned for a 4 city setup, but realized there was no space. then Oda declared and I had to fight him back. managed to get iron, upgraded two warriors to swords and took Kyoto. had a pretty solid army I thought and declared war on Harun as I wanted to have that incense where he settled Damascus. That was too much and also Hiawatha and Darius declared so I gave up.

second try: two cities (too late for 3rd), took Kyoto and Osaka leaving Oda Tokyo after he DOWed. Game went a good while like that, I took liberty and then left side of Rationalism.
Had RAs all of the time until some of the folks went hostile (Liz, Cathy).
Siam dominated the other continent and grew stronger and stronger.
I advanced pretty well with the RAs, having PT and the social policy with the RA multiplicator.
Then Darius declared and I took two of his cities at the coast with pearls. Then Harun declared and I took all of his cities including Mekka leaving him just a meaningless one (I was actually waiting for opportunities to take more land without being considered warmongering, since imho it is making life easier if you have land and thus cash to support scientific victory!).
Final game was split in two parts - at turn 220 I burned two free techs from SP and 5 GS to get to Rocketry and built Appollo. Then I did Apollo, did some hard teching and around turn 260 I had another 4 GS and burned them to get the remaining techs for the spaceship.
Expected Siam to complete UN anytime (as in the other write-ups, he had tons of cash and was allied to every single CS) but he didnt yet. At winning turn, I had one tech more than he had...
Might have made sense to attack Siam to reduce his power a bit...

For some reason the screenshot I took does not show all information... anybody similar experiences?

@Leif: Very nice game setup! Not as expected, and it would even have been possible to discover the whole map with a trireme (if you wouldnt just sell your open boarders... looking forward to the next one...

 

[jessie23]

Loss to Siam (Diplomatic) in 1878.

I usually shy away from Immortal, but decided to give it a try this time, and I was glad I did. Best I've ever done on this difficulty in Civ 4 or 5.

I settled to the south and got the sugar. Held off Japan's first attack and eventually managed to beat him back and conquer him. I was then attacked by Persia and I took 3 of their cities and got two more when they begged for peace. I left most of my cities as puppets.

Got as many RA's as I could and signed defensive agreements with Siam and Mongolia. Things were calm until late Industrial when Arabia went for the stab. We were gridlocked for awhile, then I took one city and began to slowly beat him back. I had a lot of trouble liberating Belgrade, but managed to replenish the troops with a GA and take Mecca, followed by Medina.

I was about 3 turns into the Apollo project when Siam took the diplo victory. I was powerless to stop him, I did not even discover where his territory was.

Regardless, I consider this to be a success as I've never made it past the renaissance in any sort of good condition on Immortal before.

 

[Morcar_civ5]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 37
Date submitted: 2012-06-11
Reference number: 26443
Your name: Morcar
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1884AD
Turns played: 312
Base score: 1128
Final score: 1819
Time played: 19:40:00
Submitted save: Wu Zetian_0312 AD-1884.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Morcar_C503701.Civ5Save

That was a lot of fun to play this setup. Settled near a mountain SE. Early DoW from Japan, during of which i lost my second city to them, but recoverd it 4 tourns after. Settled 3 cities in total. In the midgame i found myself in war with everyone, Persia and England kept DoW me even being Friendly all the time (except for the endgame ). So only few RA were actually completed, i think about 15 RAs were broken because of DoW from other civs, also lost one GS to Helsinki's archer - a bit unlucky . Well i couldn't stop myself from capturing japan and eventually arabian cities - i think it was my mistake, because i had really awful happiness situation, which sometimes dropped below 10 and what was slowing me down in terms of building and research. In the end i was first who completed Manhatan Project and Appolo program and didn't have any problem finishing SV first, because everyone else seemed to be busy in constant wars. In my game i had three civs wiped out: first Hiawatha, then Russia and then Japan. It was nice fighting experience for me, so thanks for this setup and would be intresting to play an immortal domination on this kind of map!

 

[Ribannah]

SCIENCE VICTORY
Turn 184 (1240ad)
HOF-score 2388


Turns 150-184
There was little time to enjoy the new ages, as they flew by in record speed. Just a mere 35 turns from Biology to launch. Hopefully, the spacefarers will nonetheless arrive safely at Alpha Centauri.

There are few events left to mention except that Persia finally conquered the last city of Japan two turns before the end. All the remaining AI ended friendly with us. Of course, since all the spaceparts except one arrived on the very last turn, they never had time to reconsider.

From turn 154 we stopped growing for some time to maximize our science output through specialists. That brought us Electricity in time to maximize RA proceeds with just 1 beaker to spare.

The cities of the great empire of China finished at sizes 20, 16, 15, 12, 12, 5.

Beijing had 2 sources of Aluminum in its radius. We needed just one Space Factory, in the capital. That, and the Statue of Liberty (turn 176) in Guangzhou, allowed a production of just over 150 hammers per turn. While the capital had exactly enough time to build the Taj Mahal, Shanghai completed the Oxford University (turn 175). Shanghai was the only city needing 2 turns to bring its spaceship part to Beijing after we build a shorter (railroad) connection to Kyoto.

Spaceship production
164 Rocketry
165-173 Beijing: Apollo Program
175 Satellites, Robotics, Particle Physics
175 Beijing: Spaceship Factory 1050g
176-180 Beijing: SS Booster
180 Nanotechnology
176-183 Shanghai: SS Engine
176-184 Nanjing: SS Cockpit
176-184 Kyoto: SS Booster
177-184 Guangzhou: SS Booster
181-184 Beijing: SS Statis Chamber

Allies
162 Kuala Lumpur (cultural)
177 Rio de Janeiro (maritime)

Policies
162 Scientific Revolution
176 Freedom

Beijing
155 Public School
163 Factory
173 APOLLO PROGRAM
175 TAJ MAHAL
180 SS Booster
185 SS Stasis Chamber, Great Scientist

Technology
154 [RA6] Military Science
157 Steam Power; Electricity (GS3)
158 [RA7] Metallurgy, Rifling
160 Dynamite
162 [RA8] Replaceable Parts; Radio, Flight (Scientific Revolution)
164 Railroad; Combustion (GS4), Radar (GS5), Rocketry (GS6)
171 [RA9] Telegraph
172 [RA10] Electronics
174 Mass Media
175 [RA11] Computers; Satellites (Oxford); Robotics (GS7), Particle Physics (GS8)
180 Nanotechnology (GS9)


Game overview

Golden Ages
90-99 Representation
126-135 Happiness
161-185 2x Great General, Taj Mahal

Great People
86 Beijing: Great General #1
90 Beijing: Great Scientist #1 (Liberty tree)
114 Beijing: Great Scientist #2
119 Beijing: Great Scientist #3 (Hagia Sophia)
122 Shanghai: Great General #2
125 Guangzhou: Great Scientist #4 (Porcelain Tower)
134 Beijing: Great Scientist #5
145 Guangzhou: Great Scientist #6
162 Shanghai: Great Scientist #7
171 Nanjing: Great Scientist #8
180 Beijing: Great Scientist #9

Wonders and projects
60 Beijing: Great Library
96 Beijing: National College
117 Shanghai: Hagia Sophia
124 Beijing: Ironworks
125 Guangzhou: Porcelain Tower
173 Beijing: Apollo Program
175 Beijing: Taj Mahal
175 Shanghai: Oxford University
176 Guangzhou: Statue of Liberty

Wars
47-68 Japan
47-72 Arabia
76-117 Persia
103-131 Japan

Research Agreements
90-121 England (Physics)
95-126 Arabia (Printing Press)
99-130 Russia (Economics)
107-138 Siam (Gunpowder, Chemistry)
117-148 Mongolia (Scientific Theory)
123-154 England #2 (Military Science)
127-158 Arabia #2 (Metallurgy, Rifling)
131-162 Persia (Replaceable Parts)
140-171 Siam #2 (Telegraph)
141-172 Iroquois (Electronics)
144-175 Russia #2 (Computers)


Thanks for a wonderful map!

 

[Tabarnak]

There was little time to enjoy the new ages, as they flew by in record speed.

Awesome

You produced quite a lot of gs in a few turns.

 

[Ribannah]

The advantage of having one more city. Note that we didn't build the National Epic in Beijing because we would then have missed the Great Scientist from off-river Nanjing.

 

[Attaturk]

SCIENCE VICTORY
Turn 184 (1240ad)
HOF-score 2388

Amazing!

Your game was nearly exact opposite of what I usually do in Science Games.
Mine priorities are, to get to NC as fast as possible (usually 2 city NC), grabbing GL - CS or - Philosophy depending on the land and game difficulty level and then at least 3 rounds of RA with at least 5 opponents.

So 15-17 RAs.

In your case, your NC was delayed greately. GL was not prioritized. Only 11 RAs signed.

I tried to replica your game, but it didn't work out first time around. Japan declared on me around T19 and I didn't get cult ruins for early settler.

I will keep trying. I want to learn to play this kind of Science Game you do.

Also, I have a Q about your second city location. Is it on the hill, east of mountain, grabbing incense and cows?
I did not find a spot between Horse and Incense as Harun grabs horses nearly immediately from Mecca

 

[Ribannah]

Yes, it's on the hill, but sw of the mountain - 4 tiles from Mecca and with Incense on the other side of the mountain. There is Oil to the west inside the city radius. We bought the horse tile right upon settling. The Iron 3 tiles away went to Kyoto though. We didn't have Iron Working yet so there was no way of knowing.

I'm playing builder style. Production before science, which in most cases also means Metal Casting before Education.

The culture ruins was good fortune of course (made me miss the 30g city state bonuses though), but early survivors, a decent amount of gold (for buying a Worker) or a key tech is also good.

I find that in the early game, there are often better uses for 500 gold (your 250 and theirs: missed payment for your resources) than signing a research agreement.

 

[Attaturk]

What prompted you to settle the second city in such as scary spot antoganizing two AIs at the same time?

I am very surprised Oda did not declared on you earlier.

Cult Ruins: I also got a lucky break finding ruins on turn 6 which boosted Bejing from 2 to 3.

It is interesting that England allowed you to grab HS and PT that late. In my game, she was the wonder hog

 

[Ribannah]

I delayed Japan's decision making by blocking their first Settler, which was initially heading towards the river south of Beijing. Apart from saving that area for ourselves, that way they were less inclined to start a war, facing the immediate loss of that Settler. Eventually though, it founded Osaka on the north coast.

Shanghai was not only excellent economically, but it was in a good defensive position, in contrast to Guangzhou at the mouth of the river. The AI were going to declare anyway and I'd rather have them attack there. I did not count on Arabia and Japan declaring jointly though, that was a scary moment.

England were primarily competing with Siam over City State alliances in my game. They did complete Notre Dame though on turn 121, one turn after we started on it in Nanjing, as well as Angkor Wat. Since Chichen Itza went to the AI, too, and Spices and Silk remained unavailable because of England's and Siam's City State preferences, we were struggling for happiness until the Taj Mahal.

As far as early ruins are concerned, I think Writing is easily the best result, since that usually also means instant gold from the AI. Culture and Survivors are next. Culture quickly becomes less important after the opening turns. If you have 2 early ruins that both give gold, you will have a comfortable game as well, since that allows you to buy an early Worker. If it's just one ruins with gold, I tend to purchase a tile.

 

[Tabarnak]

I'm playing builder style. Production before science, which in most cases also means Metal Casting before Education.

That's funny because i usually take this path when i play multiplayer games(and with lot more than 3 cities ). Maybe i'm too conservative when i play for ''peaceful'' conditions in singleplayer mode and wanna reach most RAs as possible without focusing on growth like you do.

More cities= more of everything.

@Attaturk : Hurry up, G&K will arrive soon

 

[Attaturk]

That's funny because i usually take this path when i play multiplayer games(and with lot more than 3 cities ). Maybe i'm too conservative when i play for ''peaceful'' conditions in singleplayer mode and wanna reach most RAs as possible without focusing on growth like you do.

More cities= more of everything.

@Attaturk : Hurry up, G&K will arrive soon

Well. If I am not chasing GL and early NC, my favorite opening is Tabarnak's 4 city IW rush.

I remember you describing an earlier version of that on Multiplayer forums in 2010. Loved it then. Love it now.

 

[xerex]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 37
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1846AD
Turns played: 293
Base score: 961
Final score: 1656

Okay, I actually lost the game in ~25 turns. The replay went a better but I failed to get a significant number of GS to bulb techs at the end.
Also the Patch kicked-in during before my last session of ~20 turns but it doesn't matter since I won't be submitting.

GG