TSG41 After Action Report

[AlanH]

(If somebody can please explain to me why my "Time played" isn't showing up, and how I can make it show, for future reference, it would be greatly appreciated.)

Hi

The parser that scans your file when you submit it reads the final event record in order to work out your result and the time played. The information is probably stored elsewhere in the save, but we have not succeeded in tracking it down, so we have to scrape the data out of the final event text (which may be in a variety of different languages).

We ask players to select the "a few more turns" option at he end of the game so that they can save it at the start of the next turn, when a final result event record will be included.

If you are defeated by conquest, then you cannot play another turn, because you can't do anything ... so there is no final event record in your save file ... and we can't determine who won or how long you played.

If there is no final event record, you have to use the menu option in the submission page to tell us whether it was because of a retirement or a conquest defeat.

 

[CapnBarcode]

One turn before I finished the Utopia Project, Monty launched his spaceship. Of course I never should have let it go to turn 374 in the first place, but Rome kept me distracted and I made some bad early choices (like taking the Liberty opener instead of Tradition, a mistake I recognized as soon as I clicked it.) Went to four cities as quickly as I could -- southeast on the marble, on the lakeshore between the golds, and north on the coast near the sheep and incense. Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Freedom, and Patronage; generally I opened the higher ones as they became available and backfilled later.

After Rome took out Carthage, he came for me; I lost the lakeside city for one turn, which cost me the buildings and stopped construction of the NC; for the rest of the game he kept DOWing and dying, losing one city per war. I put a Citadel on the desert hills between the lake and Rome, and that kept him pretty well bottled up when he brought out rifles against my crossbows.

Gandhi was a pain, since he was also going for culture and kept stealing my city-states, but he was eventually eaten by Monty. Monty left me alone until two turns from the end, when I lost a surprise UN vote by 1. Game ended long before he got anywhere near the coast though.

I might try this again to see if I can pull out a victory.

 

[CapnBarcode]

Now accepting sympathy...

Hehe, I feel your pain.

 

[Halcyan2]

Just finished my game. Some quick notes (more thorough details some other time - now I also have to go back and finish TSG40 which is half-way played).

Really enjoyed this game. Despite being Emperor, most of the AI's seemed to focus on things other than religion/wonders (reading the after-game report it looks like things were messy on the big continent with constant wars), which made me happy.

Was first to found a pantheon (by one turn) and I very quickly founded and enhanced a religion before anyone else got a religion. It was interesting that all the other religions were on the exciting big continent, which did let my religion dominate my side of the board. Glad that Boudicca/Haile/Pacal wasn't around but the religion theme was still prevalent (with Gandhi, Montezuma, and Isabella all having high Religion values).

Also, for some strange reason the AI's weren't too interested in building Wonders, despite only Napoleon having a low Wonder value. I actually got every single Wonder except:

- Great Lighthouse which Spain got (didn't have a coastal city until my third one)
- Machu Picchu which India got (didn't have a city near a mountain for a long, long time. Eventually I did annex Roman Antium to build Neuschwanstein).
- Game didn't last long enough to get Great Firewall and Hubble (but I was actually researching Satellites and Computers)

I got every other wonder including the late game ones (Sydney, CN Tower, U.N., Pentagon).

It wasn't intentional, but I managed to get my U.N. diplomatic victory to time perfectly with my cultural win, for a simultaneous cultural/diplo win! (Well, the best you can get considering that a cultural win nullifies the UN vote you would have on the same turn).

Carthage was my Friend the whole game, starting around Turn 25 or so, even though she stole a ridiculous number of techs from me (including Calendar when I was in Renaissance and she was in Medieval).

Rome was hostile very early on, but he DoW'ed Carthage first and knowing his hostility, I had units scouting ahead and blocking his path. He eventually sent a bunch of Legions and Ballistas, but I held them off with 2 Composites, a Warrior, and a City (which got reinforced with rushed Walls midway through). Counterattacked and over the course of 100 turns, eventually took all of Augustus' cities but one (letting Yerevan deliver the killing blow) but I'm not sure if the puppeted cities were worth it since they barely produced any culture (big difference to Vanilla). Though they did provide lots of gold and resources, I'm not sure if they were worth the culture (that would have come from Mandate of Heaven happiness).

Other than the Roman conflict (which they started), it was a peaceful game and I had DoF's Friends with all 6 of the other civs.

 

[Tabarnak]

Turn 220 : I put another citadel to steal more aluminium Started a long golden age(this will be a ga for next 62 turns).

Spoiler :

Turn 231 : Reached over 1000 cpt for the first time. 11 landmarks, i finished Liberty for a free ge for Cristo later.

Spoiler :

Turn 241 : I burned my ge and there is 4 turns left for Cristo Redentor. Only 4 policies will make profit of this wonder.

Spoiler :

Turn 282 : For 30 min i clicked ''next turn" while watching The Olympics...then suddenly...i won

Here is what the map looked like :

Spoiler :

Not close from my predictions because i needed 7-8 turns instead of 6 to finish last tree. I also made a dumb mistake when i switched landmarks for more hammers(Statue of Liverty) and put for 3 turns instead of 2 the last turns needed for my last policy. During these turns, i lost Statue of Liberty by 1 to China

But i saw something nice...13 landmarks, 3 more than my best game. If only i can combine this total with a very fast Freedom completion.

 

[jordie]

Lost to China who won a Science Victory while I was building my utopia project

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26786
Your name: jordie
Game status: Science Loss
Game date: 1965AD
Turns played: 386
Base score: 896
Final score: 896
Time played: 4:58:00
Submitted save: Theodora_0386 AD-1966.Civ5Save
Renamed file: jordie_C504101.Civ5Save

Kinda sad that I didn't get to finish :/ I thought I was having a rather good game, but looking at others, I was well behind (I don't know how you guys do it!!)

China taking the win

Spoiler :

Religion choices

Spoiler :

Overview of my civ (4 cities)

Spoiler :

Final game map

Spoiler :

And a weird bug (?) that I experienced. I settled Antioch on top of some ivory. When Rome declared war, Singapore was allied with them and invaded it and took it over, then razed it. The ivory was turned into Jewellery somehow? I resettled after the war and got the Jewellery as a new luxury resource, so another +4 happiness in addition to the ivory happiness I had (But don't have in this screen because I had traded it away when I had 2 ivory).

Spoiler :

 

[Chowee]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26787
Your name: Chowee
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1912AD
Turns played: 332
Base score: 986
Final score: 1493
Time played: 5:44:00

Here is my submission for the GOTM 41. I may have been lucky in the begining because Augustus, despite being hostile from the begining prefered to attack Jakarta. I had some defense ready anyway but that attack on a CS allowed me to bother him by putting some of my troops in the way. The CS then managed him easily and his forces were to low for him to declare another war right away. A few turns later, while I was considering building a 4th settler to go and grad thoose gold tiles, Carthage settled there. Then I knew that Augustus would not be a problem until he would manage to eradicate Dido, which he never did . At one point neer turn 250 he decided together with Montezuma (strongest civ in my game) to DoW me. He tried send some troops and navy to land on Jakarta and inved me from there. Easily handled and few turns later, he begs for peace... Allright.

The rest of the game was pretty much straight forward. France and another civ that I never met were wiped out by Monty. I was friend with Ghandi, Isabella and Dido all game long. It was basically the two warmongers vs. the rest of the world. Of course I had all the city states on my side and most of my gold went to them, tryong to keep them falling into wrong hands. Of course the spies helped very much here. I chose the infinite golden age strategy with my Great Artists (only 2 landmarks I think) and was runing on 3 cities with enormous pop and constant growth.

Religion speaking I chose the obvious culture from wine and incense, monasteries, cathedrals, faith from desert, culture from followers in other civ and cheaper missionaries. I had an insane amount of faith in the end and could spam great prophets to ensure that my religion was the dominant one on my continent. Carthage created one very late and tried to spread it. I only let them spread it to there own cities and send missionaries and prophets as soon as they would try to remove mine from roman territory or CSs. That ensured me good relation with Carthage despite a hidden religious conflict

For the SPs I went Tradition into Piety. Then I filled following the needs the Patronage, Commerce and Freedom branchs. I also manage to keep a good scientific pace and stay ontop of everyone most of the time.

I enjoyed this game which started quite stressful at the begining with this constant menace from Rome but got better and better as I took a big culture and scientific lead to concentrate on CS allying and religion spreading without building too much of an army as I was feeling pretty safe.

 

[Dreadnough]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26789
Your name: Dreadnough
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1890AD
Turns played: 315
Base score: 975
Final score: 1547
Time played: 7:24:00

I guess I was just to tired and couldn't concentrate even in the slightest. So I made really aweful mistakes. Instead of a summary I decided to give you a list of my mistake, so you can learn from it. Actually they are quite basic things, but still worth to remembering.

I went for Tradition opener, Liberty opener, free worker and got the wine fast to sell it. Of course I didn't even bothered to watch my happieness when I settled my second city. With two wines improved, but both sold, I went into unhappieness. Of course I tried to improve the third one fast, but a barbarian (which was replaced by a second one just when he died) kept destroying them, we kind of ran in a circle arround the city. This delayed my growth a lot.

I settled my second city in the middle of the desert hills and wanted to rush for Petra as soon as possible. But due to its slow growth I decided to wait at least for the fourth worker. Once I got it I changed the tiles in a way that I got the maximum amount of hammers. One turn after my maritime CS wasn't allied anymore, loosing one food in every city. Guess was happened, one citizen died. I needed another 7 turn to get it back, delaying Petra even more. I even had enough gold to keep him allied, but didn't watch.

Then I used all my mones to get allied with Brussel. I still had happieness problems. But I didn't checked if Brussel had even Whales connected, and of course it hadn't. So another 200 gold needed there.

Interesting was the fact that Brussel wanted me to denounce Dido. Since I was allied with Dido I didn't do it, but Rome took Didos last city a turn later. And I even saw it coming with my scout, so I really could had done it.

I lost my initial warrior to barbs, which was really stupid. He was almost dead and I send him on a hill, just to see a barbcamp right after it.

I think that was the main part. Happieness problems and the citizen loss really slowed my early game down.


By the way, is there any way to influence the ancient ruins? I started with a pop ruin, right before my city had a normal growth, wasting the ruin. Then I got a pottery ruin, when the tech was almost finished, giving just two turns faster calender. That was pretty annoying as well.
Do you wait before taking ruins if your city just needs a turn to get another pop?


World curch seemed to be a waste, until I crossed the ocean. With Desert Folklore I was able to buy a missionary every three turns. I had the great mosque and +25% missionary strenght, and so I spread my religion very fast over the whole continent. Spain and China hated me after it but it was worth it.

Augustus was not that much of a problem. He attacked me with 5 swords, 5 balilista and a spearman. But I already had 3 composite bows. Using my capital to get another unit every three turns it was very easy to deflect his attack, even though he killed quite some units. I didn't want his ballista to attack my city. When his next wave like 70 turns later I just made peace and three turns later we were the best friends possible.


I am not sure about the scenario. I really liked the start position, but being on such a small island with only two AI on it was somehow boring. I like to interact with a lot of AI. That Dido died and Augustus was at war with me half of the game didn't help.

 

[Suntechnique]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26792
Your name: Suntechnique
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 2210
Final score: 3745
Time played: 4:39:00

Wohoo, my most powerful culture game!

I was again prohibited from declaring war by my beloved spectator, my wife Luckily Ceasar was stupid enough to declare war on me twice. After wiping Dido and first rush on my capital being repelled he started to lose cities one by one, saving Rome by sudden 4000g tribute (free Museums, very handy). But later on he declared war again and was wiped (see screenshot)

My strategy:
3 cities until Utopia unlocked -- capital in the starting position, other 6-7 hexes to east and west. Unfortunately I didn't scout top otherwise I'd put a capital 1 hex north to get 2 more wine.

Policies: no Piety cause it suxx Tradition -> few from Liberty -> 4 from Rationalism -> Freedom
this way u get a bit less culture traded for the power of science from left part of Rationalism. And culture loss would be compensated by Sidney's Opera which I usually miss going Piety path.

I got most Wonders only important thing missed was Alhambra.

Religion: faith from deserts, faith/culture from wine, cathedrals, monasteries, tithe and religion spreading.

 

[Halcyan2]

And a weird bug (?) that I experienced. I settled Antioch on top of some ivory. When Rome declared war, Singapore was allied with them and invaded it and took it over, then razed it. The ivory was turned into Jewellery somehow? I resettled after the war and got the Jewellery as a new luxury resource, so another +4 happiness in addition to the ivory happiness I had (But don't have in this screen because I had traded it away when I had 2 ivory).

It's a common bug.

When a Mercantile CS razes a city, it leaves a Unique Luxury where the city used to be. Oftentimes it will be the Jewelry/Porcelain that the Mercantile CS *doesn't* provide.

However, you can only gain access to that Jewelry/Porcelain by settling on it (since there is no tile improvement that gives you access to it).

 

[Halcyan2]

By the way, is there any way to influence the ancient ruins? I started with a pop ruin, right before my city had a normal growth, wasting the ruin. Then I got a pottery ruin, when the tech was almost finished, giving just two turns faster calender. That was pretty annoying as well.
Do you wait before taking ruins if your city just needs a turn to get another pop?

The population ruin isn't wasted (though you are getting less effective food than if you waited). If you check before/after, you'll notice that the food store remains the same. So you might not grow immediately again, but you have a headstart on the next population. So if you are at 29/30 and get the population ruin, you keep the 29 food, so you are now 29/60 instead of 0/60 (I made those numbers up). With tech, however, you aren't credited with any progress you have already made.

Ancient ruin results are determined by the random seed. In GOTM (where the rules prohibit reloading), there is no way to influence the ancient ruins. If you are one turn away from finishing a tech, you could wait (but there is only a small chance you will get a tech, and a small chance that tech will be the one you are researching). You can also avoid Advanced weapon results by getting the ruin with civilian units or a unit that has already gotten Advanced weapons (limited to once per unit). I believe technology is limited to Ancient era techs, so you can avoid that result if you have all the Ancient techs!

In a non-GOTM game, you can see different results based on random seed. If you check the "new random seed" game option when creating a game, you may get different results on a reload. However, I have found that Ancient Ruins often come from a locus of results (e.g. this particular Ruin at this time has 3 or 4 possible results. If you reload you will get a different one out of those 3 or 4, but you won't be able to get a result outside of those 3 or 4 even though it is a theoretical Ruins result).

In games where the "new random seed" option is *not* checked, you can influence results by doing things differently. Each time you do something that uses a random seed (combat, explore a ruin). You can experiment this by doing a combat before taking the ruins. Then doing two combats before the ruins. Then three combats. Etc. If you do action X as the Yth seed, you will always get the same results, but if you switch around the order of your actions (or add extra actions requiring seeds) you will see things happen differently. Once again this does not apply to GOTM since replaying/reloading is not allowed.

 

[Jenarie]

Rome captured my capital (and still only city - was about to send a settler out but too late!) on turn 67. Shortest game ever. I wasn't prepared for how aggressive the AI are at higher levels and was still doing my normal wandering around exploring thing that works fine for me on low level games. Was fun while it lasted.

 

[Osner]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26795
Your name: Osner
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1842AD
Turns played: 291
Base score: 1106
Final score: 1906
Time played: 7:24:00

First cultural game in Gods & Kings. Settled North on mountain, second city south of Quebec and third next to mountain to get gold, marble and sugar.

Build second city with sea access, had three fish (one fish and lux grabbed from Quebec with great general). With Petra in it, desert faith and monastery, this city did quite well. In the end used this city to build Utopia in 14 turns.

Rome killed Dido in beginning and then was in constant war with me. Could not trade any lux as a result. Also, when exploring with trireme I did not meet any other civ.

Managed to convert our continent and the city states in the South to my religion. Had only tithe chosen to profit from this and not the one also granting culture for every five followers. Had Cathedral for extra culture.

Rome stole two lux from me with two great generals. This had not happened before in any of my games and I was impressed by this AI behaviour.

All in all I enjoyed the game, but hard on my laptop with very long turn times and lots of crashes. My laptop prefers small maps.

Thanks for the nice game!

 

[Morcar_civ5]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 41
Date submitted: 2012-08-04
Reference number: 26799
Your name: Morcar
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1852AD
Turns played: 296
Base score: 1015
Final score: 1720
Time played: 9:01:00

It wasn't easy game for me. Was at war with Rome almost all game, so had to place a citadel near one of my cities (close to Cesar) this way i could repulse his attacks more easely. Dido also DoWed me a couple of times just to see her troops die under my citadel walls. General mistake was astronomy taken too late - so missed the benefits of 3 culture CCs on other continets for too many turns. In the end i have about 1300 cpt (under GA), so i manager to grab two more policies while building Utopia. It took me 15 turns to complete it. Also realized too lately that i should have burnen my GA for Golden age at some stage instead of settling them, i could have cut a ten or more turns had i realized it earlier. Also had one game crash on turn 88 - i got BSOD, so might not be a game problem actually...

Thanks for the game!

 

[Jenarie]

I tried a second time after submitting and lasted longer but quit after Rome took my capital and one of my cities leaving me down to one city and him owning the rest of the continent. Did Rome seem extra strong this game or was this normal for the AI on Emp level? It didn't seem like Dido could keep up with him either. He got her before me.

 

[Dan4GS]

Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1904AD
Turns played: 324
Base score: 1755
Final score: 2742
Time played: 6:06:00

Well, I thought I did alright, but made a HUGE mistake in selecting my founder belief...I chose the +15 influence resting point with city states that follow my religion. Sounded good with tons of CS's nearby, several of which I had already allied with, so wasted there. The other ones I allied with quickly instead of waiting to gain the free influence first, so again, wasted. If I had chosen something else, like a happiness buff or tithe, I would have been so much better off.

Settled on hill to NE. First city south by coast, second next to mountain to east for gold/marble/sugar. 4'th city placed near city state on west coast for sheep/hills/desert...but I missed out on Petra, so that was a big blow.

Rome and Dido both DOW early but I had archers ready and easily held them off. Once I got CB I went offensive and took a couple Roman cities. Made peace for nice profit than when I got Crossbows I DOW them and utterly destroyed them...didn't leave them a city. Then for good measure I destroyed Carthage as well...so could peaceful build from there on out. All it really took was 3-4 cataphracts, 3-4 archers/CB/Crossbow and 1 warrior/sword.

Fun game but wish I hadn't made the mistake with religion. Also, needed to focus on getting some GA out earlier, as I think that caused a big delay in final time.

 

[Schalke 04]

Date submitted: 2012-08-05
Reference number: 26812
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1834AD
Turns played: 287
Base score: 1004
Final score: 1761

That was a fun game! My second attempt for a cultural victory (my first was TSG22) therefore I am quite happy with my victory date.

I normally always settle in place. However, I read so much about moving your starting settler to another spot, that I tried it this time. I went to the hill NE to get more river tiles and one more production. This decision changed the whole game (I just don't know if for good or not... ). By settling there my capital got access to the two wine resources to the north, so there was no need to settle a city there. And that was my problem: I didn't know where to settle my fourth city, so I just settled three...

My strategy was to go for a Stonehenge start, which worked pretty well. I got all the beliefs I wanted (goddess of festivals, world church, monasteries, cathedrals, religious arts, holy order) and was able to enhance my religion at turn 102. And after that I purchased a Mosque of Djenne powered missionary ever 3 or 4 turns But in the end I find world church a little underwhelming. It just gave me 60 culture per turn, well but still nice. I just think that these missionaries ruined my relationships with the other continent. I converted a lot there and they all hated me. I was just able to sign one single research agreement (and one DoF) in the whole game... and that was with Monty...

My second city was planned in the far west. I wanted to have access to the coast to send out dromons for scouting. AND I wanted to have Petra in this city. With all this hills and sheep... phew, unfortionately I missed this wonder... On the other hand, it was the only wonder I missed, so that was OK I guess.

My third city was founded in the eastern woods to get access to marble and gold. My scouting dromon saw the carthagian capital under heavy siege by the Romans. So I knew I would be the next and started on a city wall immediately and placed my archers in the woods. These mountains were a perfect natural barrier plus the woods that would slow Caesar down. And shortly after I set up my defences, Caesar arrived with Legions and Ballista. He moved in and out , left and right, but he never declared...! I was waiting and waiting and then I decided to declare on my own, before he upgrades his units into Trebs and Longsword... With the help of the terrain it was a disaster for Caesar, and I decided to never make peace for the rest of the game, just for fun and to get XP

I made a lot of strategical mistakes. For example I just started on Pisa and the Louvre past T200 and I never tried to go for Chitchen Itza. That was due to my bad science just like the case that I completed Tradition, Piety and Patronage (1 SP was missing to finish Patro) before I could invest into Freedom. And: I did Liberty far too late. It was the fifth tree I started to invest in. This extra 33% could have shaved off some more turns... I thought it might be neglectable, since I just had 3 cities, but I was quite surprised how much it did in the end...
If I did all of this a little better I might have shaved off a good number of turns.
But I am perfectly OK with this. I normally don't run for the fastest victory finish and find it difficult to subordinate every decision under this rule. And 287 isn't too bad after all. So: Yay!

Screen:

Spoiler :

 

[Aaronius]

Like many casual players, I was unprepared for the rapaciousness of the Roman Legions. I took some advice from the great and wise Tabarnak on a Tradition 4 City opening, and fared much better the second time around. I was able to repel Legions with my Compound Bowmen, and had a nice game. Once I was ahead of the game I went into my usual builder mode and got pretty much every wonder in the game. The last one I missed was Chichen Itza. I meandered into a culture victory with some very impressive cities. I also learned the power of the Petra this game. Talk about making the desert bloom

 

[twothree]

Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1954AD
Turns played: 374
Base score: 980
Final score: 1324
Time played: 14:48:00

Third game of Civ5 and my second GOTM. It was a strange game. I was almost constantly in a war time state with Rome. I used only three cities. Settled on the hills to the SE, second city built to the south, and the third city built to the NW.

Things I did wrong: Played defensive the entire game. Probably half the game was over before I built a building to generate any religion. After exploring my starting continent, I did not explore anymore. Did not make friends with culture CS until the last half of the game.

Twice Rome had units around my Capitol. Both times I managed to survive with a smaller more advanced force. At the end of the game Rome had a more advanced military with many bombers, aircraft carriers and great war infantry while I purchased culture techs instead. With about ten turns to go before my victory, I finally gave Rome his peace treaty and one of my cities. I did this mainly to speed up the AI turns as they were taking a very long time to process and I was tired and wanted to goto bed.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I'm done with the GoTM.

Say it aint so, Monthar!