TSG49 After Action Report

[Halcyan2]

I would like to add that 'detouring' for Alhambra right after unlocking Acoustics can be beneficial.

Yes, you are right. Alhambra's +20% culture is pretty sweet.

However, from my experience, Alhambra and Chichen Itza tend to be the most popular Medieval wonders for the AI. Lots of civs with mounted UU's prioritize Chivalry, and so you'll have a lot more competition for it than, say, Angkor Wat.

For a Science and Diplomacy game, you want to enter the Renaissance fast to unlock Rationalism. For Cultural games, entering the Renaissance ASAP isn't so key. You do want Acoustics (Opera Houses) and Architecture (Hermitage). But Architecture also requires Banking and Chivalry, so you'll need to do Chivalry anyway so you could legitimately do Chivalry before Acoustics if you want.

If you do Acoustics first, you can get the Opera Houses running sooner. Part of it depends on whether you intend to build or buy the opera houses (and if you buy them, whether you have the gold now or need to accumulate it). Then again, you could also do Chivalry before Acoustics if you are worried about getting Alhambra in time.

 

[Tabarnak]

I would like to add that 'detouring' for Alhambra right after unlocking Acoustics can be beneficial.

Hey that's what i've done...but lost Alhambra 5 turns to go These wonder fails are really annoying

Edit : Nope...i researched for Hermitage first(took the +8 cpt religion too). What is better? An early Hermitage or Alhambra? You unlock PT and Taj too, 2 very nice wonders. If you can lightning build PT so you can reach the ind. era faster. Am i off the track?

Thats my current problem...i want every wonders but lose half of them among the way...meh.

 

[Powertoast]

Wow, that was fun. First post and first GOTM submission. Pretty excited about it!


The big mistakes I made:

1. Didn't push my religion aggressively enough. I took Fertility Rites, Tithe, and Cathedrals early on, but my two cities next to Egypt got converted to Buddhism before I started spreading my religion. In retrospect, it might have been better to get shrines earlier in my build and buy up some missionaries for spreading into Egypt before Enhancing. Ended up not having Cathedrals until much later.

2. Forgot to adopt Freedom... twice. I kept pushing through Commerce due to sheer thoughtlessness.

3. Delayed building Amphitheaters(!). I don't really remember why I did this? I think I wanted Universities for some reason...

4. Thought I had connected my Petra Powerhouse Production Place by rail. One of my workers woke up because of a nearby Egyptian unit and I moved him to safety, thinking that he had awoken because he completed his railroad, not because of the Egyptian unit. I didn't spot the mistake until one turn before Utopia finished. Not huge, but it would have saved me a minimum of two turns.

5. Neglected exploration. After the game ended, I continued playing for Satellites and found two more Cultural city states. Whoops. I need to get better about building a few Caravels and exploring when the time is right.

6. Missed a few key Wonders, most importantly, Chichen Itza, Alahambra, and the Louvre. Oops. It's especially frustrating that I missed Chichen Itza because I only missed by 3 turns... And I had forgotten to start building it for 4 turns after having gotten Civil Service.


Things I did well:

1. Picked a GREAT Petra city spot. That city was off the hook and had several wonderful cultural wonders, like the Terracotta Army and Christo Redentor.

2. Got a wonder in every city. Nice! This can sometimes be hard to do, especially with a civ like Egypt in the game. It helped having less AIs though.

3. Made good use of my UA. I had 3 DoFs going for most of the game, 2 for the rest of it. With the Leaning Tower, a Garden, the National Epic, and +30% from the UA in my capital, along with 5 filled artist slots... I think I was cranking out +34 GA points a turn!

4. Kept my tech on par with the AI. This is something I normally struggle with in cultural games. This game, I got the Porcelain Tower and signed RAs like they were going out of style. I also settled the GS I got from the Porcelain Tower next to my mountain-jungle city and got that place cranking out MAD BEAKERZ YO. Around turn 275, I noted it was making something like 150 beakers a turn. I think I also built the NC in this city? So way to go me for specializing my cities.

5. Used my spies to keep my two Cultural CS allies locked down. Pretty self explanatory, but it really made things quite a bit smoother.

Made a lot of silly mistakes but still managed to wrap the game up on turn 350 exactly. Settled on the wine. Best move I made the whole game. Sold the wine to Willem early for an extra settler. Had a pretty slow start otherwise because I found a string of desert hills fairly far north of the capital by a mountain range and decided that was where my second city would be. I put the second city down in that hilly region next to the coast. I had the mistaken notion that I was playing on Continents, and so wanted a coastal city. Had I known the terrain better, I would have settled inland for more hills! I did manage to build the Petra in this city and it turned into a monster later on.

Settled my third city on the same river as the second. Put my fourth and final city in the jungle, next to a mountain and on a riverside hill. Got gardens in every city, then made friends with Willem and Alex by denouncing Genghis. Got into an early war with Egypt that lasted almost the whole game with a few outbreaks of peace (Egypt thought I looked like a tasty snack but couldn't get past the mountain range and into my territory). Willem and Alex declared on Genghis a little while later and I continued to denounce for bonus super ultra friend points.

Eventually, the Mongols died, then Alex went a little schizo on us and started picking on Willem and I, seemingly bored with not having a war to fight. Game went pretty smoothly after that, with Alex slowly growing and Willem and I developing a better relationship over time. He eventually went Freedom and we had a continual Defensive Pact going by the end of the game. We never did get attacked by Alex, but it was nice having each others backs.

All in all, a lot of fun, and my first win with Sweden! I only wish I had been able to use the UU!

 

[leif erikson]

Wow, that was fun. First post and first GOTM submission. Pretty excited about it!

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you could join us and like your write-up.

 

[juicegecko]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 49
Date submitted: 2012-12-04
Reference number: 27834
Your name: juicegecko
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1940AD
Turns played: 360
Base score: 1163
Final score: 1615
Time played: 9:28:00
Submitted save: Gustavus Adolphus_0360 AD-1940.Civ5Save
Renamed file: juicegecko_C504901.Civ5Save

I tried to stay neutral the whole game, in a true swedish fashion, to make the best of our UA. It wasn't easy, considering my best friends were Alex and Genghis.

In the end I got dragged into a loooong defensive war against Alex, Ramesses and William, outnumbered and lagging in tech, but in a good defensive possition, which allowed me to keep building culture instead of turning all my hammers into the war effort.

This game made me love submarines. At the beginning of the war my only fleet was a mix of frigates and ironclads, while all the other guys were rolling in battleships and aircraft carriers.

I think during the whole war I managed to sink around 10 egyptian battleships, 3 carriers and a few other subs using my small wolfpack. Alexander didn't have any fleet that I could see and William got himself lost in the jungles surrounding Birka. In the end, time was ticking in my favor.

 

[Hyperion529]

absentmindedly reloaded once after i realized a frustrating and stupid mistake, so i wont submit this.
i had a very strange start. didnt like the area very much, so i started to walk around with my settler. too many ocean tiles, almost no grasslands, somehow i really didnt want to settle my capital there. i was almost about to forfeit and skip this gotm when i finally discovered the spot where most of you founded their second city for Petra and settled on the cotton, on turn 8 or 9 i think.

despite the "wasted" turns in the beginning i decided to play this out. i had already found 2 culture and a gold ancient ruin on my walkabout (and barb camp locations...) so i figured with the extra production and culture from Petra in my capital it was still worth a try. went for pottery and rush bought a granary. a shrine and discovering Wittenberg helped in securing desert folklore as a pantheon (later took tithe, cathedrals, religious community and religious texts). stole a worker from Belgrade and teched for currency, but also built the hanging gardens on the way. delayed researching d&p until Petra was complete. with the powerful help of (riverside) desert hills i managed to grab most wonders i wanted from here on. i only missed HS by 1 turn and didnt get CI.

Sigtuna was founded on the coast north of the starting area, next to cattle and wheat and with 3 fish in its workable rings. at this point i still thought it might be a continents map and wanted a coastal city. Helsinki was founded next to the wine at the start. i didnt build any more cities, but later puppeted Maastrich when i was attacked by the dutch, and immediately sold it back to William. very late in the game i also puppeted an egypt city to increase the odds of a favorable peace deal with Ramses.

the UA proved to be very useful. i was able to gift several used great prophets and great generals to CS and also had 3 friends and thus +30% GP generation throughout most of the game. Genghis was actually my most reliable friend and stayed with me from the beginning to the end and was happy to keep some of the others busy for very little gold. unfortunately, he also liked to occupy my CS allies, especially my cultural buddies Brussels and Monaco. Ramses backstabbed me twice, but that wasnt really a surprise. Alex also lost his interest in friendship over time, but at the same time i became instead friends with Harun and William, who had hated me and declared war on me about 40 turns before. egypt showed up 3 times at my doorstep, but each time defending was relatively easy.

policies were full tradition, 4 in piety, full patronage, freedom, liberty, last in piety. i somehow entered the industrial age a lot later than usually in my cultural games. dunno really why even if i subtract the ~10 turns starting delay. if i knew i would have to take more than 3 policies in the tree after piety and before freedom, i would have picked liberty first.
on the other hand, i really love the "allied CS occasionally gift you GP" policy. its so unpredictable (or am i just completely unaware of the mechanics? seems totally random to me) and often nets nice surprises. with sweden, even the "bad" GP serve some purpose. and thanks to tithe and gifting, i had all of the CS in my pocket very early (except for the ones that got conquered of course).

i settled 8 GAs and burned the rest for golden ages. cpt peaked at about 1030, but i lost 2 cultural CS to Genghis around the time i finished freedom and erected broadcast towers in my empire, so it would have been a bit higher with them still around. settled a GE and built mines over the landmarks on hills to speed up the utopia project in the end.

i had much more fun than with the previous gotm and think i'm going to play as sweden again sometime.

Spoiler :

 

[Maxym]

im curious at what turn some better players are a) entering Industrial, b) opening Freedom, c) completing freedom and d) how many policies you have left to do after finishing Freedom.

i dont remember when i entered it, but i finished Freedom at 258 and still had a whole tree and 3 policies left. since trying an early liberty strategy im missing all kinds of timings.

I entered infustrial t201, opened freedom few turns later, not sure when I finished, around 250-60 or so. I think I had 7 or 8 left to finish. Mind you i had an awful game and made a mess of my SPs.

 

[pkf]

t283 finish,

opened tradition (opener), then liberty until settler, finished liberty, opened piety and patronage. Should have taken the patronage opener earlier as i really needed the 25%, I was allied with about 5 CSes all the time and friendly with most others.

~t171 freedom (used oxford for archaelogy), filled it out very quickly.

key wonders were gl, hg, CI (with ge from liberty). after those my tech lead was already sufficient to go easy on sistine and taj mahal, although ramses, that son of a b..., stole architecture and finished PT 1 turn before my completion. that really set me back about 15 turns as i had to research radio in quite slow speed.

as soon as i had radio i had about 1k cpt (9-10 landmarks) and it was just a matter of prebuilding in my petra city (115 hammers), eventually took only 12 turns for utopia.

ramses declared right before utopia, he had bombers and i was researching metallugry spent my remaining gold on suicidal defending of my hill tiles.


i really think liberty is the better choice with this starting spot.

 

[glory7]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 49
Date submitted: 2012-12-06
Reference number: 27840
Your name: glory7
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1822AD
Turns played: 281
Base score: 2351
Final score: 4198
Time played: 9:18:00
Submitted save: TSG49_glory7_culture_281.Civ5Save
Renamed file: glory7_C504901.Civ5Save

Hello,

I've written what I have done for first part (~t119 when I entered renaissance with acoustics). Basically, I extracted gold from AI and didn't plan to have any DoF or RA. I feel that AIs are too unpredictable (well, they often go to "hostile" from "friendly" with no clear reason) and I would be better off spending gold on my own units/buildings/cs bribes. Moreover, it seems that AIs cannot build wonders if I take gold from them and keep them in war state.

I got all wonders I wanted at the beginning of the game. But I didn't pay attention to arab for a while, and lost alhambra by 2 turns.. that was painful and I am pretty sure that failure delayed my finish time at least 5 turns.

Following advices, I tried to enter industrial era asap and open freedon asap. I entered it with oxford archaeology at t156 and opened freedom at t161. The problem was, my cpt was not really enough and I didn't have gold to buy museums, so early arch timing was basically wasted. I finished freedom at t196 and cpt was 443. at t197, cpt 475 (liberated kathmandu from dutch), at 198 cpt 500 (planted GA). I used one GS to get radio faster and when I buy Broadcast tower at cap at t200, cpt was 552. With reformation at t210, cpt 697. cpt went up continuously as I plant more GAs and puppeted cities add marginal culture. I liberated 3 culture CS from mongols later and that boosted cpt more. After 230 cpt >1000.

Also, my sp was a bit mess - I started with tradition opener - liberty worker - settler - GA - liberty finish - pat 2 (between them got legalism to get free opera houses) - piety opener - freedom open and finish - piety finish - fill tradition and pat.

I was expecting t290-295 finish when I completed freedom, but could finish it earlier, thanks to UU and monster petra city (built utopia in 6 turns - almost 5, lack 20 hammers). When I reached cpt around 850, I realized that unlike science, there is no way to increase cpt... I already have all culture building in all four cities and 5 artists slots were full.

The only way to get more culture is to liberate culture CS and puppet some cities. Carolean is just... OP. Free march promotion is too much. I didn't want to start the actual war but egypt and dutch DoWed me (backstab for egypt) and dutch took my previous ally culture CS kathmandu, so I had to pump out units and went war. Once I started war, I almost forgot that I was aiming for a culture victory and focused on killing AIs. In the end, I captured all caps except egypt one. You can tell from my score that I did play a domination game.

Afterthought, I think I shouldn't have built 4th city and built 3rd one at the coast so that I could frigate rush to liberate two coastal culture CS fast. I didn't realize that we had 2 culture CS at the island (stupid me...) until like t160. If I had coastal city up and explored west sea, I think I could have saved 5-10 turns.

Any comments/feedbacks are appreciated in advance.

 

[Maxym]

Culture Victory
Game date:1858AD
Turns played:299
Base score:2321
Final score:3933

I am quite pleased to get in under 300t as i have made terrible blunders for most of the game. Lost tons of Wonders as i did not incite any AI wars, it would have gotten me most of them as i was off by few turns on most. Was going to lose Statue of L by 2 turns to William late game, and got Alex to Dow him and presto he is building military base even though he is going to win the war,

I lost Alhambra so fast to HArun, i didnt even get the tech when i saw him building it. I was hoping to take Egypt's wonder cities when he attacked t103, but got bogged down in that swamp and never took any. Got the peace deal, and moved my forces to take Mecca. Went cheap and did not build that 4th galleas to upgrade to frigate. Sure enough 3 was not enough, lost 2 and most of land forces and had to build another 5 and a new army. Kept fighting Harun as i was doing it as to keep his unit stock down,and eventually took his cap, but so late that even with all the wonders i did not annex it.

Went back up to finish off Rammy, this time with Hakkas and Caroleans, soon to be GWI. Took most of his core cities and decided to put an end to William as well. He had flight before me but genghis helped and we took him out. That is i took 9 cities and swiped harlem from Genghis's nose to deny him any prize in the war.

I got my settler from liberty on turn 294, which was one of the reason i opened it, lol and settled on cows between petra city and cap as was my original plan. Utopia was built in petra of course, 225 production, and i used my libety finisher GE to plant it there and got the utopia down to 5 turns from 6. I guess as good use of that GE as any.

I have learned a lot in this effort:

keep AI fighting if you want the wonders.

Focus on science early not culture, real culture is made after freedom

keep looking for cullture CS, they are key early.

pick a SP path and stick with it.

When building an invasion force, dont skimp, build 2 extra units rather then 1 less.

Conquer earlier if you plan to annex.

Buid 4 cities even if one is less then optimal.

Here is the screen from a turn before win, i had fun fighting with infantry, arty, landships and WWI airforce.

Spoiler :

Surprisingly no AI was a clear runaway in mygame. Genghis was military leader most of the time, but Alex, William and even harun kept Dowing him and taking back Jakarta and Hong Kong and making him do it all over again. Alex and Harun kept fighting but neither got anywhere until i took Harun's cap and Alex then swallowed him and looked like a runaway to be but never got anywhere. I liked the extra room, it let everyone grow fast, and fight some interesting later wars.

Thanks for the game guys,

 

[Tabarnak]

Any comments/feedbacks are appreciated in advance.

Nice game glory7!

I finished at turn 283 but i don't have time to make any reports for now. I entered Freedom at tur 175 and ended this tree at 208. The DoF were awesome. I even signed 3 RAs that propulsed me for Radio.

I also lost Alhambra and i missed cathedrals as well. Even without them i reached 1010 cpt near the end. I forgot to stop Oxford completion so i had to use it for Economics(with 3 turns researched already )

I built Cristo in my 4th city (with the free GE from Liberty) that couldn't grab any wonders with 5 policies to go.

I built Utopia in 6 turns in my Petra city

Tradition is cleary superior to Liberty here. I played very badly the first 200 turns and i still finished way before the 300 turns mark. With proper strategy and luck i would have hit low 270s or high 260s.

 

[Tabarnak]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 49
Date submitted: 2012-12-06
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1826AD
Turns played: 283
Base score: 1408
Final score: 2514
Time played: 5:41:00
Submitted save: Gustavus Adolphus_0283 AD-1826.Civ5Save

Continuing from my previous post from the progress thread :

My initial university from my capital generated a gs for a later bulb : Archeology. I reached that tech on turn 175 and i synched the next policy so i could enter Freedom right on that turn too. I also started a golden age that will last all the time until completion of Utopia. I completed Freedom on turn 208. I thought that i had some picture to illustrate this but i can't find them

After some rush buys and extra cs alliances, it was time to build Cristo in my 4th city that couldn't get a single wonder(lost Colossus from 2 turns of completion earlier). Another good timing here, i completed Liberty right when i discovered Plastics :

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, AIs from east side of me were friendly all the time, DoFed 3-4 of them all the time too for a nice gpp rate. Egypt was very less friendly and we went at war at some occasions. But some militaristic cs gave me some nice units and i decided to use them offensively against him. I conquered some of their cities...just for fun I finally reached the 1000 cpt mark despite not having Alhambra and cathedrals. Income rate is so huge that i don't know what to do with my gold, buying all luxuries from AIs to get a little more bonus form extra happiness to generate some culture.

Spoiler :

Utopia has been started in Birka the Petra city who had way more production than my capital. I did some hammer overflow that saved me 1 turn.

Spoiler :

Some stats :

Spoiler :

Thoughts :

The first 150 turns were atrocious. I wasn't sure by that time if i could hit the 300 turns mark. These RAs and DoF saved my ass. Kudos for Machu Picchu that gave me quite a nice gpt rate all the time, letting me enough gold to rush buy stuffs when needed.

I lost 3 wonders from some turns of completion : GL, Alhambra and Colossus that cost me around 7-8 turns. I also missed cathedrals(every other buildings were available excepted this one ) that cost me another 5-6 turns, maybe more.

I hit Education around the turn 117 and got acoustics on turn 134 if i remember well. The second part of the game was pretty good i think. I managed to gain bigger steps with PT and Taj Mahal. I missed Pisa too but didn't try to build this wonder at all, Greece already built it before i got that tech(went for Archeology first).

So, again, since a couple of GOTM, my ''talon d'achille'' seems to be the first 130 turns. Maybe i don't pay enough attention of what i'm doing or maybe i'm simply missing something...or maybe i'm just unlucky with AIs that seem to hit some wonders earlier than i think. But the main reason is probably because i''m not used with this patch and i probably ''gamble'' a lot more than other players that know exactly when some stuffs will happen in regards of AIs. I need sp game practices for sure...playing only GOTM games since june.

 

[scaramonga]

Was going well in the beginning, but at around turn 150, Egypt started mass ICS, grabbing any spare bit of land. He DOW'd on me around turn 100 and we remained at constant war till I quit. He must have had around 15 cities. The weird and annoying thing though, was that he also kept spamming hundreds of 'workers'? and invaded me on every turn with them. I just kept capturing them and deleting them on every turn, dunno if this was a tactic of his to keep me busy?, but it became irritating and tedious after a while, that I gave up. Strange element that I have never seen before?

I may give it another go though.

 

[glory7]

Had a fun time with this game. I enjoy playing Sweden (especially for the Great Person generation bonus) and really liked going for a Cultural Victory (I think Diplomacy would have been too boring and predictable for Sweden).

Wow, what a throught and insightful writeup. nice job done.

I almost always went for tithe when I play sp where I think I can spread my religion, but after reading your thread I think I might need to consider ceremonial burial option too.

For coastal cap, I agree with you - especially with culture victory that requires you to plant lots of GAs, I think land cap is much better. Good decision to have at least one coastal city - I didn't have one and I could not reach two culture CS taken by mongols only by land (long, long way). Also, if I had a coastal city, I would have found culture CSs on the island much faster.

 

[glory7]

Nice game glory7!

I finished at turn 283 but i don't have time to make any reports for now. I entered Freedom at tur 175 and ended this tree at 208. The DoF were awesome. I even signed 3 RAs that propulsed me for Radio.

I also lost Alhambra and i missed cathedrals as well. Even without them i reached 1010 cpt near the end. I forgot to stop Oxford completion so i had to use it for Economics(with 3 turns researched already )

I built Cristo in my 4th city (with the free GE from Liberty) that couldn't grab any wonders with 5 policies to go.

I built Utopia in 6 turns in my Petra city

Tradition is cleary superior to Liberty here. I played very badly the first 200 turns and i still finished way before the 300 turns mark. With proper strategy and luck i would have hit low 270s or high 260s.

First of all, thank you! while it may just come from your better skill for mid-late part of the game, I think you have a point that tradition works out better. Well, after reading a progress report and taking a look at the screenshot of your cities around t120 that seemed not that different from mine around t110, I thought I could finish at least 10 turns earlier than your game as you missed lots of key wonders and I got all I wanted with some, or lots of, luck. Well, the result shows that I am wrong.

I guess the power of tradition comes after t100, or t150 when without its completion bonus it takes long for pop increase. I should try tradition replaying this map.

For cpt, mine was over 1000 around t230 already and we spent the same 6 turns on utopia (your petra city looks almost identical to mine), so it means that even with more culture I finished my policy only two turns earlier. I finished freedom much earlier so I got double bonus from landmarks earlier too... I guess it is partly b/c I got reformation really late and partly b/c I am not good at culture games.

How many culture CS you got during the game? I only had one till like t160 and added two more (islands between mongol and me) after, and liberated 3 culture CS around t210-30 from mongols.

 

[glory7]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 49
Date submitted: 2012-12-06
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1826AD
Turns played: 283
Base score: 1408
Final score: 2514
Time played: 5:41:00
Submitted save: Gustavus Adolphus_0283 AD-1826.Civ5Save

Continuing from my previous post from the progress thread :

My initial university from my capital generated a gs for a later bulb : Archeology. I reached that tech on turn 175 and i synched the next policy so i could enter Freedom right on that turn too. I also started a golden age that will last all the time until completion of Utopia. I completed Freedom on turn 208. I thought that i had some picture to illustrate this but i can't find them

After some rush buys and extra cs alliances, it was time to build Cristo in my 4th city that couldn't get a single wonder(lost Colossus from 2 turns of completion earlier). Another good timing here, i completed Liberty right when i discovered Plastics :

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, AIs from east side of me were friendly all the time, DoFed 3-4 of them all the time too for a nice gpp rate. Egypt was very less friendly and we went at war at some occasions. But some militaristic cs gave me some nice units and i decided to use them offensively against him. I conquered some of their cities...just for fun I finally reached the 1000 cpt mark despite not having Alhambra and cathedrals. Income rate is so huge that i don't know what to do with my gold, buying all luxuries from AIs to get a little more bonus form extra happiness to generate some culture.

Spoiler :

Utopia has been started in Birka the Petra city who had way more production than my capital. I did some hammer overflow that saved me 1 turn.

Spoiler :

Some stats :

Spoiler :

Thoughts :

The first 150 turns were atrocious. I wasn't sure by that time if i could hit the 300 turns mark. These RAs and DoF saved my ass. Kudos for Machu Picchu that gave me quite a nice gpt rate all the time, letting me enough gold to rush buy stuffs when needed.

I lost 3 wonders from some turns of completion : GL, Alhambra and Colossus that cost me around 7-8 turns. I also missed cathedrals(every other buildings were available excepted this one ) that cost me another 5-6 turns, maybe more.

I hit Education around the turn 117 and got acoustics on turn 134 if i remember well. The second part of the game was pretty good i think. I managed to gain bigger steps with PT and Taj Mahal. I missed Pisa too but didn't try to build this wonder at all, Greece already built it before i got that tech(went for Archeology first).

So, again, since a couple of GOTM, my ''talon d'achille'' seems to be the first 130 turns. Maybe i don't pay enough attention of what i'm doing or maybe i'm simply missing something...or maybe i'm just unlucky with AIs that seem to hit some wonders earlier than i think. But the main reason is probably because i''m not used with this patch and i probably ''gamble'' a lot more than other players that know exactly when some stuffs will happen in regards of AIs. I need sp game practices for sure...playing only GOTM games since june.

nicely done, especially with bad luck at the first half of the game. I can't believe that you missed key wonders including GL, alhambra, and pisa and key building (cathedral..) and still got t283 finish.

 

[Tabarnak]

How many culture CS you got during the game? I only had one till like t160 and added two more (islands between mongol and me) after, and liberated 3 culture CS around t210-30 from mongols.

I think i got 2 of them for a while then discovered the far east one later pretty much later when i opened borders with the Mongols. Ghengis captured 2 of them but didnt liberate any.

I can't believe that you missed key wonders including GL, alhambra, and pisa and key building (cathedral..) and still got t283 finish.

Me too

 

[omnivore]

Got pwned. I don't play on Emperor. Egypt wouldn't leave me alone the entire game. I held him off from my fifth city to the north admist all the mountains for the longest time, but he got airplanes long before I got close. I eventually sold the city to Arabia for a song, just to try and create some tension between Egypt and Arabia but it didn't work. Eventually, Egypt mass assaulted me again with modern units and again I held him off, until he finally appeared at my capital with a major fleet and I had to capitulate. He only took one city in exchange, and I was still holding on to scant hope then lost Sydney Opera House to Arabia by two turns. At this point everybody else was building mad space parts and I gave up the ghost; still had two full trees to go.

 

[i_am_memory]

Civ5 GOTM 49
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1945AD
Turns played: 365
Base score: 2293
Final score: 3141
Time played: 4:25:00

Hard game. Khan and Alex almost had their spaceships done when I won. I did not know the UU stacked, so was pleasantly surprised. Eternal war with Egypt which I won, spawned four GG, gave those to CS.

Totally forgot to do piety, so fail on that. Totally forgot to do freedom until I finished commerce, so fail on that. Otherwise, I am pleased. I wasn't sure I would win this game as Alex was one spaceship piece away from the victory. Close one for me.

 

[Loopy22]

Game:Civ5 GOTM 49
Date submitted:2012-12-09
Reference number:27866
Your name:Loopy22
Game status:Culture Victory
Game date:1957AD
Turns played:377
Base score:853
Final score:1137
Time played:2:31:00
Submitted save:Loopy22 Game of the Month 49.Civ5Save
Renamed file:Loopy22_C504901.Civ5Save

Settled 1 space SE of original starting point (wanted to be on the river for the watermill). Allied with Belgrade immediately. Rushed first for Stonehenge, then Terracotta Army. Focused on Liberty tree first, used that to get first worker and settler. Settled second city to the north west, on the river near the egyptian border. After terracotta Army went straight for Oracle, then Hagia Sophia.

Finished Liberty tree to get Great Engineer. Used Engineer to rush build Hagia Sophia, and used free Great Prophet to enhance religion (with stonehenge I was the first to get a religion in the beginning).

With pantheon I got the bonus of +1 culture for all plantations. With religion I went for world church and cathedrals. With enhancement I went with mosques and religious texts. The Cathedral/Mosque combo really boosted culture in the city.

Finished Liberty tree first, then Piety tree. Started on Tradition tree until Industrial age, then filled out Freedom. Used all Great Artists and Great Prophets to either make great improvements or start golden ages. Eventually allied with both cultural city-states.

After Hagia Sophia I went straight for Sistine Chapel, which I was able to get. After that I never got another wonder again (good ole' Egyptians and Dutch). Kept myself limited to 4 cities.

Both Egypt and Dutch declared war on me by industrial era (i think around 1700 AD). I had alot of military troops, but they were all crossbowmen and pikemen. Egypt attacked with riflemen and cannons (quickly escalated to infantry and airplanes). Dutch never sent many troops across the border. My borders were so large that they just moved troops in but were never close enough to attack my city.

Egypt was slow to attack because of the mountain range. I bribed Alexander to declare war on both Egypt and Dutch, which he did. I rushed to upgrade and build units, and was able to fend off Egyptians without losing a city. They kept reducing its health to 0 with airpower, but never could take it with ground troops.

Greece eventually conquered pretty much all of Dutch towards the end. Egypt was two spaceship parts away from winning when I built Utopia. After Liberty, Piety, and Freedom, I finished off with Tradition and Commerce to trigger Utopia.

Closest part of the game was when Alexander built United Nations (preliminary polls showed that he would win in a landslide). It just so happened that the next election was going to take place the very turn my Utopia would be complete. I was not sure how the game would process each, and which one would take priority. Rushed to gift great artists and great prophets to city states, and bribe them as well. I had 5 of them allied to me before election, but it didn't matter. Apparently Utopia takes priority over election, and I won. VERY close game. Only way I could win was to get the most important cultural wonders first before AI jumped too far ahead. It was fun though.