TSG50 After Action Report

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Welcome to the TSG50 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.

Please use the Civ5 game submission page to submit your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.).

- How did you use your UU's?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
- What effect did fewer AI and more space have on your strategy?

Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay).

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on game setup. :)
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-15
Reference number: 27900
Your name: trueblue
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1824AD
Turns played: 282
Base score: 1187
Final score: 2119
Time played: 2:06:00
Submitted save: GOTM50Save.Civ5Save
Renamed file: trueblue_C505001.Civ5Save




its a lot quicker with fast combat.
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-16
Reference number: 27907
Your name: drac313
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1952AD
Turns played: 373
Base score: 2638
Final score: 3564
Time played: 3:36:00
Submitted save: Maria Theresa_0373 AD-1953.Civ5Save
Renamed file: drac313_C505001.Civ5Save

It wasn't too much of a diplomacy for me haha. I just took over 65% of the world and bought off all city states I could that weren't conquered by Rome. I used diplo marriage on 2 cities. Quebec City and Jerusalem(because it was the closest city on the other continent and I could use it as a landing base for my invasion of Rome).
 
I finally won in 1911 after 2 votes. I messed up and missed by 1 vote the first time. I married all but 11 city states on the map so they could vote for me.

So first I did religion>papal primacy, Petra etc. I had missionaries all over the globe. Every CS was catholic. Then I used my Austria's ability to get more GP for artists and had a continual golden age from about banking/printing press until the end of the game. This gave me more money and more culture. I had 10 turn culture during all this time. full Tradition, full Liberty, full Patronage, left side rationalism, Order for factories. Then I married all the states next to me, killed Great Wall India with artillery and liberated 2 CS that japan had taken, then married them so I had a big red blob of a country. Got into a little bit of trouble at the end and had to spend and spy my way out to keep all the cs alliances.

I will post my save later, not a fast game but was fun and easy. I pretty much did everything.


Game:Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted:2012-12-16
Reference number:27909
Your name:budweiser
Game status:Diplomacy Victory
Game date:1911AD
Turns played:331
Base score:2512
Final score:3806
Time played:4:53:00
 
First GOTM ever. I had a lot of fun with this, especially since I've never gone for a Diplomatic Victory before. I'm sure I could've been a lot faster, but I'll take it.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-16
Reference number: 27912
Your name: Icono
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1892AD
Turns played: 316
Base score: 1134
Final score: 1800
Time played: 3:43:00


Funded most of my CS alliances through my religion spreading. At the end there I had my religion in every city save 2. Went to war with Ghandi twice due to his desire to be an . Snagged Mumbai from him and he peaced up quick and left me alone for the rest of the game minus a few denouncements. England DoW'ed while she was still at war with Japan, and Japan beat me to her capital, so that was fairly anti-climatic. Beyond that, extremely peaceful and mellow game. I took a few screenshots, but I can't find where I put them, I'll try to add them in later. EDIT: Got them. Silly Steam.



Spoiler :
 
Nice game and Welcome! I'm glad you had fun with it and hope you play many more GotMs.
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-17
Reference number: 27920
Your name: AE_
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1510AD
Turns played: 212
Base score: 1083
Final score: 2578
Time played: 6:50:00
Submitted save: Maria Theresa_0212 AD-1510.Civ5Save
Renamed file: AE__C505001.Civ5Save

Spoiler :


Played this very peacefully without marrying any CS. I DOWed India once in the beginning to steal a worker, and got DOWed by England once (and took London), but other than that i had no wars.

I had a slow start (compared to Tommy anyway) but I am happy with my game after turn 100. I might be too much in love with an early GL to get a good start. The next time I will try to build more useful stuff in my cap instead.

My policies where tradition, patronage until the science bonus, then first 3 from rationalism before taking one from order to get a second GE for UN.
 

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Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-17
Reference number: 27922
Your name: browd
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1814AD
Turns played: 277
Base score: 1371
Final score: 2492
Time played: 4:41:00
Submitted save: Maria Theresa_0277 AD-1814.Civ5Save
Renamed file: browd_C505001.Civ5Save

Got off to a slow start (went for GL, early NC and Petra, which slowed down settler production -- had to build three settlers since the AI had NO money). Anyway, Gandhi settled Mumbai in my face and another city up at the north end of the continent, so I retaliated by taking the northern city with 3 CBs and a Spearman and promptly razed that city (re-founded a fresh city one tile over later on). Then I puppeted Mumbai and marched on Delhi. Took it with some pikes and CBs (and one poor catapult that died on the same turn he showed up to the party). For both Mumbai and Delhi I used a scout to draw one round of fire (poor guys died of course, but well worth 140 gold). Left Gandhi with two secondary cities. Also puppeted London, mostly to deny it to Oda (who then chewed on Gandhi for most of the rest of the game). London had Stonehenge, which was nice. Later annexed Delhi and it turned into a nice wonder factory (it already had Terracotta Army, HG and Pyramids, and I later added Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal, Eiffel, and the NIA); built everything else that mattered in my capital, including ND, Pisa, PT, Big Ben, Sistine, Oracle, Forbidden Palace and timed Louvre for back-to-back Golden Ages (to build the UN and generate gold for CS bribes as the turns counted down to the UN vote).

Religion was ordinary - Desert Folklore pantheon, Church Property founder belief, Religious Community for the hammers and Mosques for the usual reasons (except I only bought one Mosque--should have done Shrine happiness (Aestheticism)). My religion ended up in 44 cities -- not bad with two continents and some remote island CSs. Cities ended up at 27, 21, 20, 20 and 17, plus puppets at 11 and 10, peak bpt was just under 1000, and policies were full Tradition, left side of Rationalism to Free Thought, right side of Commerce, and the Patronage opener (shortly before the UN vote began).

As for the specific questions:

- How did you use your UU's?

Coffee Houses are nice (built or bought them in all cities), but never built the horse unit. Never did diplo marriage--each CS seemed more useful as a friend or ally than as a puppet or annexed city.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?

See above for religion--lots of gold, but nothing else. I went -12 happiness after taking Delhi and it took far too long to dig out of that hole -- happiness from religion would have been helpful. On spying, I was the tech leader before the Renaissance, so I mostly used spies to monitor what my "friends" were up to and to rig CS elections. I did steal Compass from Rome, but he didn't notice, so no drama there.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

I stayed friends with Rome for almost the entire game and had 3 (I think) rounds of RAs with him, plus one RA with Alex and two with Oda, but they were so far behind that the payoffs were the minimum (approx 5 turns of beakers) -- probably not worth the gold I squandered. After I took his capital, Gandhi remained grumpy for the remainder of the game, but he was neutered.

- What effect did fewer AI and more space have on your strategy?

Not much effect. The immediate neighborhood was fairly crowded, while the peninsula toward the south remained almost unsettled. Rome and Greece wiped out the Mayans and Spain pretty early (I was able to get one round of lux trades with each before they disappeared), so their continent was one big slug-fest.

Screenies are my final empire and demographics.
 

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Just finished my game. Will post some details in the next couple of days.

Looking at the other after action reports, I find it interesting to see the continuing trend of Rome + Greece dominating the other continent. Poor Maya and Spain.

Why do you guys think Rome and Greece are so successful on this particular map (with these game settings)?
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-17
Reference number: 27924
Your name: BuddhaBubba
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1966AD
Turns played: 386
Base score: 2434
Final score: 3161
Time played: 6:02:00

Good game.

Went liberty at the start and quickly got my three cities but was pissed when India took the northern spot for my fourth. Oh well, India was my friend.

England was a bastard and sneak attacked my eastern city. I held a grudge the rest of the game. It was really quite a struggle. I probably had 3 inconclusive wars with England until I took London with the help of Japan. I was also struggling with tech and so my ranking was actually just one above the bottom (England). It started to turn around after I took London.

Destert Foklore + Petra = early religion and production powerhouse for Vienna!

Japan was their usual war-monger self. They helped me take out England and then DOW'd India because, well, they were closer I guess. I seized the opportunity and DOW'd India soon after. Because I had riflemen and cannons vs musketmen and trebuchets it pretty easy to take Gandhi out of the picture. With the gazillion wonders that Gandhi had built in Delhi I now had 50+ happiness for pretty much the rest of the game.

I was content to be peaceful the rest of the game, making money and city-state friends but noooo.... Japan had to declare war. Ok, I had a feeling they would so I had put a spy in the capital. And the espionage was actually helpful because I got a ~7 turn warning of Japan attacking one of my cities. So I moved troops around, queued a bunch more and prepared for the worst. The worst never came. By this time I was several techs ahead of Japan and so I beat off there invasion and then conquered one city after another. After taking most of the mainland cities I sued for peace.

Rome and Greece had built the Apollo project but no space parts yet. It was simple to beeline for Globalization and build the U.N. Solid win with all city-states allied. (I only annexed one state: Antwerp, and Rome conquered Sydney early-on)

Anyways... I think the key was choosing Papal primacy and Itinerant preachers and getting the first religion. Because all the city-states were my religion, they were basically always friends (because of the Patronage boost too, of course). There were plenty of coups staged by other civs but I had extra thousands of gold to buy 'em right back.
 

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Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-18
Reference number: 27932
Your name: tommynt
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1250AD
Turns played: 185
Base score: 1411
Final score: 3813
Time played: 6:11:00
Submitted save: GOTM50_turn185win_tommynt.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tommynt_C505001.Civ5Save

well played this without any DOWing civs apart 2 early worker steals from india and England and when I killed both later :)

Expanded to 4 cities very fast and then tried to get happynes to keep them growing by buying CS -
after expanding cap went for gl and then stables and NC and in end Petra

religion I went obviously desert folg, Pagodas and last pick went to food from shrines and temples - prod bonus might have been better

After I got plastics (like turn 160) things went really fast till the end
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-19
Reference number: 27936
Your name: Cpt Oblivious
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1920AD
Turns played: 340
Base score: 1102
Final score: 1620
Time played: 3:54:00
Submitted save: TSG50_CptObliv_340Diplo.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Cpt_Oblivious_C505001.Civ5Save

First time GOTM'er (well, not entirely, I actually did 49, but didn't submit because I had a bit of a "close down the game in frustration" after a loss 1 turn from UP completion and didn't get the save in. But I stuck with this one)

- How did you use your UU's?
I actually didn't at all, I built up a primarily defensive army and then married into 2 more CS worth of troops, so I don't think I actually built a single unit after Pikes.
Well, I take that back. I did employ UU's, but it was the CKNs that Almaty gifted me, not my Hussars ;)

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?

I actually ended up using a lot of espionage, couping military CS's and rotating my spies around so I could share intrigue and get goody points with other civs (actually ended up being Alex and Isabella's best friend all game just cause I kept spoiling Roman sneak attacks on them.)

I went with a hybrid religion, being the 4th pantheon (and Desert Folklore already gone) and 4th established religion. I went with Messenger of the Gods because I planned to go wide- that didn't exactly work, but it helped- and for probably the first and last time tried Papal Primacy.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

Very... strangely. Mostly because two of them decided to swap roles: Ghandi immediately went to expand- and built right in my face - where Elizabeth went tall; she literally was playing OCC that game. With Ghandi building right onto me and me returning the favor to secure the pass on the western coast, I expected us to fight all game. But luckily, Japan was being jerks (and DoW'd Liz early) to take the heat off me. In fact, me and India teamed up twice to slap him out of London and back to his coast, which kept me blocked off with very friendly neighbors for most of the game. :)

- What effect did fewer AI and more space have on your strategy?

To be honest, if there were fewer AI (I thought 7 was standard?), and more space, I certainly didn't feel it. It may be an effect of Ghandi expanding into me immediately and being blocked out of a few paths I would like to have gone, but this game actually felt more cramped than usual. To the end that I had to eventually look for island hopping once I got grounded enough to try expanding out further, and finally resort to my UA just to get cities.
 
First time GOTM'er (well, not entirely, I actually did 49, but didn't submit because I had a bit of a "close down the game in frustration" after a loss 1 turn from UP completion and didn't get the save in. But I stuck with this one)
Welcome to the GOTM. :wavey:

Congrats on your win and best of luck in future. :thumbsup:
 
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1908AD
Turns played: 328
Base score: 897
Final score: 1380

Didn't marry any city states or build any hussars, coffee houses were nice though. Built four cities and played peacefully.
Thanks for the game. Merry Xmas.
 
I played a peaceful 4-city game, lots of faith and probably not enough culture early on.

The plan was to tech up, stay friends with the AIs, and not worry about allying the CSes until I completed Patronage. I was very conservative and did not take a lot of risks - no worker steals, no conquest - I had a slow slog up the tech tree.

There were two wars:

I fought an early defensive war against England and brought Japan in. Japan almost conquered London, and I didn't want Oda to be on my borders, so I parked some units in London's first ring, and over the next 2,000 years of the Anglo-Japanese war, noble Austrian peacekeepers saved Elizabeth's sorry empire from annihilation.

It got a bit more exciting near the end. I was really annoyed at being beaten to wonders by only 1 or 2 turns. Gandhi seemed to be getting most of them, and even though we were friends, I couldn't resist the jewel of Delhi, only a few tiles from my borders, defended only by pikemen and crossbowmen. (Also, I had a defensive army that kept getting bigger and bigger from military city state units, and I didn't want to just disband them ...) Here's what I conquered from Delhi:

Alhambra
Angkor Wat
Chichen Itza
Great Mosque of Djenne
Machu Picchu
Sistine Chapel
Taj Mahal
Terracotta Army
The Forbidden Palace
The Hanging Gardens
The Pyramids​

What a score! The only downside was that my DOF hadn't expired yet, so I denounced and attacked Gandhi while we were still friends. It turns out the other AIs really hate it when you do that, and they all started denouncing me. So attacking Gandhi ended up being a bit counter-productive for a Diplo victory, but in any case I won the election from city state votes, not AI votes.

Result: diplo victory 1900AD (T320)



(Oh yeah, there was a third war: after 'one ... more ... turn' and uploading the save, I decided to try out nuclear bombs :devil: )
 
Finished on turn 279. Won't submit, since I reloaded once (got interfered and didn't think for a second when I build my second town two turns before NC was finished in the capital).

Went with tradition and build only 4 cities, which slowed me down first, because I wasn't conquering any cities either. Lost two early wonders by couple turns (SH and HG, IIRC), which slowed me down a bit

After I got more aggressive and conquered London and a bunch of other cities it was walk in the park. Should have been aggressive sooner.

On the other continent Rome and Greek where attacking everyone (just like in everyone elses games as well).
 

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Game:	Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted:	2012-12-21
Your name:	gkreitz
Game status:	Diplomacy Victory
Game date:	1600AD
Turns played:	[B]230[/B]
Base score:	1774
Final score:	3856

Settled in place (great Petra location). Was awfully slow to first settler, settled 2nd city by river and mountain with marble toward south-east about turn 35. Got up to four cities around turn 55. England DoWed, so took London where she had been kind enough to build the great lighthouse. Japan also attacked her and wiped her out. Built Petra and iron works in capital making it a huge industrial power-house spamming wonders. India also wonder-spammed, so I took their capital with Machu Picchu, Great wall and one or two other wonders. Diplo-annexed city states on my continent which were not mercantile, with the exception of Florence and Geneva which Japan had captured. The latter two were liberated from Japan, which was reduced down to two cities it had captured.

Went tradition, opened patronage (missed rationalism by a few turns, but got oracle a few turns later for rationalism opener). Overall took 2 left side policies in rationalism, order + science from factories (and then rationalism happiness a turn before UN vote :)).

Religion with desert folklore, tithe, pagodas (only had the faith to build a few though, prioritized missionaries and later great people), +30% range, and production. Missed out on religious texts by a turn because I bought an early missionary and popped 2nd GP via Hagia Sofia. In the end, given how close the continents were, I think the 30% range was probably the better choice as it helped my religion get a good foot hold also on the other continent.

3 settled great scientists, and bulbed maybe 3-4 more. Didn't really keep track of when they were about to spawn, so Oxford ended up cutting of a whopping 1 turn from Globalization's research. :)

Other continent was dominated by Spain followed by Greece, which seems to differ a bit from what others reported. I was peaceful and even had a few RAs with that continent. UN vote was very easy, I bought all city states by a decent margin due to nice gpt (I think it was about 700 by the vote). The AI was very passive and only tried one coup and buying one city state between me building UN and the vote. I encouraged passivity by trading for all their gold on hand every turn, but didn't do any tricks like declaring war to prevent flipping.
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-21
Reference number: 27957
Your name: Alphons Rodulfo
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1804AD
Turns played: 272
Base score: 1684
Final score: 3118
Time played: 11:50:00
Submitted save: Maria Theresa_0272 AD-1804.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Alphons_Rodulfo_C505001.Civ5Save

My start was not so good, but I am glad I paid attention to Tabernak's tip to settle on the gold hill. I tried to keep focused on science from the start. Keeping focus is not something I am particularly good at, but this game I managed to do it quite well. Initial setbacks were nice spots to the south being settled by other civs, and being one turn too late to build the Great Library. Also I had too few mountains for observatories.

The end game went fairly well. I had lots of great scientists (bought two or three with faith) and a great engineer popped out just in time to build the UN.

I did not use the Austrian unique ability, I guess mostly because unsure about its effects. I did have two hussars, one of which proved useful as a spotter for artillary.

I settled four cities, but I annexed a fifth one because I wanted a city next to a mountain. In the end I had some puppets too. I had wars with England, Japan and Greece, in that order. England was threatening me. Japan had occupied two city states that I wanted to liberate, and Greece was being a nuisance and was about to grow too large. Initially, most other civs were friendly and I did have a few friendships. At the end, the others were guarded so I could not have many research agreements. I only had one, with the Romans.

I had to reload from an autosave once (set to save on every turn) because of a full computer crash.
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-21
Reference number: 27959
Your name: Pizzaspy
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1868AD
Turns played: 304
Base score: 1690
Final score: 2816

  • Settled on Gold
  • Rushed Petra
  • Mobilized a huge force
  • Conquered my continent
  • Aggressively spread my religion
  • Settled one city near elephants on other continent
  • Diplo marriaged Mombasa to seal off north of the other continent
  • Greece, Spain, Rome and Mayans balanced most of game, lots of warring in every combination
  • Aggressive science for the rest of the game while they duke it out
  • Was huge enough that every CS was permanently allied, way ahead in tech
  • Lost some turns by not saving a GE for the UN

Social policies: All of liberty, all of patronage, mix of commerce/rationalism
Religion: Desert Folklore, Papal Primacy, Mosques, Pagodas, Religious texts

Looks like the peaceful science focused option is much faster...my jaw is on the floor with some of these dates I am seeing! I definitely took extra time to build and research military units thinking my size would make up for it, but guess not. Although I am pretty happy with 1868, I rarely win before the 1900s
 
Game: Civ5 GOTM 50
Date submitted: 2012-12-21
Reference number: 27951
Your name: scaramonga
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1960AD
Turns played: 380
Base score: 1299
Final score: 1709
Time played: 5:11:00
Submitted save: DV_WIN_Maria Theresa_0380 AD-1960_scara.Civ5Save
Renamed file: scaramonga_C505001.Civ5Save


Thoroughly enjoyable game, and I never wanted it to end.

Went the Gold route ;) Saved up all mine, till I had between 10-12k, and on last turn, before UN vote, bought all the CS off, easy votes with 4k+ to spare, but I won, and all that matters. :)

- How did you use your UU's?

Not at all.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?

Just to 'soften' up the CS's a little.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbours?

Elizabeth nearly caught me out with only 2 Archers and a warrior early on, but I managed to fight her off and get a few gold from her when she decided not to bother after her weak attempt. ;) Gandhi beat me to most Wonders on a turn or slightly more, so I waited till my army was tight, then I wasted his Capital and grabbed them all ;) Settled peacefully with him for lots of gold to me after that. Lots of Denouncing from Alex as per usual, but he was too far away to bother me, still, being the warmonger he is, his words annoyed me, and I couldn't rip his head off, pity. Rome came back strong in the end, and Caesar was his usual self taking over the planet, he was friendly enough with me, but it really didn't matter by that point.

- What effect did fewer AI and more space have on your strategy?

Went for the 4 city Tradition route and settled my 4 cities pretty quick, mainly because I wanted to take up the top part of map. The AI still has a bad habit of ICS in areas you don't grab quick.

I do not care about quick wins, as long as I do win ;)

Great game and many thx :)
 

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