TSG52 After Action Report

[CatGarfield]

As I mentioned in the Opening Actions Thread, this was my first attempt at gotm. I'm not submitting the game because of a misclick/reload incident, which might not be viewed acceptable.

I usually play Immortal level, so the AI didn't have too many surprises for me. Their lack of wonder building was somewhat surprising. I managed to build the great wall and the pyramids pretty late in the game for Immortal level, plus several of the late game wonders. The cheaper purchases SP from Commerce plus Big Ben made buying units much more preferable than building them. I stayed at 4 cities + puppets all game, which made Social Policies easier to get. After completing tradition I finished honor, took right side of commerce and the food/happiness SPs from Freedom.

My early warmongering (worker from CS) caused a serious lack of beakers compared to my usual games. I only had a DoF and a RA with Pacal, which lasted right to the end. No one else wanted anything to do with me, so I didn't manage much of a tech lead until in the late game.

After I was finished with Arabia, I was planning to ease up on the warring and concentrate on infrastructure and get to rifling and artillery before the final confrontations. I entered the Industrial era second on turn 175. On t189 I got a triple DoW from Cathy, Lizzy and Haile. One city Ramses and Harun also joined in, but Harun was wiped out completely by my ally Almaty, while I took out Egypt's last city Memphis. Fighting a three/four front war was a pain for my somewhat small army, so I managed to lose Moscow and two of my gatling guns to Cathy (t207) and my allies Colombo, Geneva, Ragusa and Sidon were eliminated.

After researching rifling and eventually artillery and frequently rush-buying caroleans and artillery, I was able to get the upper hand in all my wars. I made peace with England (all gold, all gpt from her) to be able to concentrate on Russia and Ethiopia, liberated Colombo and Geneva and took Cathy out of the game. After eliminating Cathy, half of my western army took on Napoleon (t240ish), who had been warring with my friend Pacal for centuries, but somehow managing not to take Pacal out of the game. The other half turned to Lizzy (t250)in the north to gain some XPs while waiting for my eastern army to finish with Addis Abeba, which fell on turn 251. Peace with Ethiopia was signed on turn 255, which gave me Sidon(liberated) and all of Haile's gold and gpt.

I rushed my eastern army (doubleshooting, ranged (rocket)artillery and caroleans turned infantry) to take on Lizzy, and London fell on turn 266. Meanwhile my western army liberated Jakarta and Paris on turn 265. I made peace with both Napoleon and Lizzy after taking their capitals, DoWed my eternal friend Pacal on 267 and took his capital on 269. Ended up with 6298 points.

Funny thing happened between turns 266/267. My happiness plummeted from 0 to -12, with no notification whatsoever. Probably because some of my puppet governors decided not to use specialists anymore, I can't think of other mechanism to that. I just assigned all possible specialists to work in my major cities and got back to zero. Swedish cities size were all between 25 and 28 IIRC, and some puppets got too big for my liking.

It was a fun yet hard and tedious game, since I usually try to stay friendly with most major CiVs, and only DoW if relationships are bad anyway. And it was my first game ever without reloading after dumb mistakes or milking the AI for gold before war.

Gotta do this again sometime.

 

[leif erikson]

As I mentioned in the Opening Actions Thread, this was my first attempt at gotm. I'm not submitting the game because of a misclick/reload incident, which might not be viewed acceptable.

for following the rules.

Gotta do this again sometime.

We hope you will join us again with the next game, which came out three days ago.
Good Luck.

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

This was my first domination game. I was a thought-provoking experience. I did horribly at planning ahead, but I hoped I learned from it. So thanks for the game! I hope to see more domination games in the future. I now have the feeling that it is the most multi-faceted victory type there is, if there is a decent challenge from the map type and the difficulty level.

I really liked moving armies and navies around the globe and meeting so many unique units. I got to fight longbowmen, musketeers, foreign legion, mehal sefari, cossacks and in the end my tanks got shot at by camel archers. I also liked the mix of ground, naval and air warfare a lot. As I wrote earlier, I had the feeling this was a very complete game.

I won’t bother you with an account of what happened in detail, but here are some things I learned:

• Plan ahead from the start: In what order should the capitals be taken?
• Resurrecting a player is a good idea for Sweden, it will likely give you a declaration of friendship, which is good for generation of great people.
• Don’t sign declarations of Friendship with civilizations you will be conquering soon. (By the way, I was unable to find information on how many turns were left for my declarations of friendship)
• Naval warfare beats ground warfare in speed and effectiveness. So capitals should be divided in two groups: those accessible by sea and the others. For each group the optimal attack sequence should be determined
• Use workers to build roads to the enemy before your armies set out to march. These roads will not only speed up troop movement, they can also form trade routes with conquered cities.

 

[gkreitz]

Game:	Civ5 GOTM 52
Date submitted:	2013-01-22
Reference number:	28159
Your name:	gkreitz
Game status:	Domination Victory
Game date:	1290AD
Turns played:	[B]189[/B]
Base score:	1488
Final score:	4021

Settled in place. Went liberty and founded a religion for happiness (by settling my 2nd city south on the copper and buying the holy mountain). Was planning to settle a nice petra city in the desert to the east, but Arabia (!) wandered far north and planted it. Settled my 3rd and final city west of the capital to get more incense and wine (took the pantheon to grab faith + culture from 'em). Fairly early war against Arabia to take the Petra city and GE:d to get the wonder. Egypt DoW:ed me, and was reduced down to one city. The AI was a bit more odd than usual in settling in this game - before the war Egypt wandered over a settler to between me and Catherine, leading to him in the war trying to move over workers to that city giving me a nice early number of workers. Teched up to CB and attacked first Catherine and then England. In parallel, I teched to frigates and built a fleet that took the three remaining capitals (first Arabia, then France, and last Ethiopia). I was planning on sailing troops to Ethiopia to cut off maybe 10 turns, but he had spammed triremes and had about 10 of them guarding his coast, meaning I needed naval support.

It was a nice setup and a fun game to play, thanks Leif!

 

[Monthar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 52
Date submitted: 2013-01-22
Reference number: 28163
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1872AD
Turns played: 306
Base score: 3009
Final score: 4932
Time played: 9:34:00
Submitted save: TSG52_Domination_Win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C505201.Civ5Save

I got bogged down on my 2nd civ and thing slowed way down because of it. At least I still won.

Policies
Completed Liberty, then completed honor, then completed Autocracy and ended up with the commerce opener.

 

[Half Nelson]

Domination Victory1640AD
Turns played: 239
Base score: 1661
Final score: 3534

Took 4-city tradition and had stormed Egypt and Arabian capitals by turn 100 with bows. Pushed tech towards Navigation and built two Frigate navies to conquer Ethiopia and France (the latter to gain a back door into Mayan territory). Maintained friendship with Russia, leaving them until last, which turned out to be my biggest error because they built GW and, due to SP/religion/Wonder bonuses, had a Defence 110 capital by the time I turned on them (at around turn 200). On the other hand, they had taken out the English and Mayan capitals for me. Moscow was not in reach of my navy, so had to wait for GW bombers and Artillery to complete the win. I used all the Swedish attributes and found them to be very strong at this level. Caroleans are excellent, especially when upgraded and I finally realized the full potential of the Hakapellita as a means to position citadels deep into enemy territory (this was vital in capturing Moscow).

I took the wine/incense pantheon and city happiness founder. After Tradition, I took 2 Patronage for the +20 influence, then 3 Order (for happiness, factories and attack bonus) and finally opened Rationalism to buy a GS with Faith (this was to rush Plastics for Infantry, but I didn't need them in the end).

A very enjoyable game, right at my current level!

 

[beezany]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 52
Date submitted: 2013-01-27
Reference number: 28188
Your name: BWS
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 940AD
Turns played: 157
Base score: 139
Final score: 139
Time played: 2:42:00
Submitted save: AutoSave_0157 AD-0940.Civ5Save
Renamed file: BWS_C505201.Civ5Save

Oops!

Lots of mistakes in this one. Started out with a Great Library rush, built NC before turn 60. Everything after that was downhill. Settled a city on cotton at the desert river delta, but Catherine and Harun grabbed the other two spots I wanted. Started gearing up to take my land back from Catherine, left myself wide open for a sneak attack by Ramesses, lost my second city. I eventually got that back and Catherine's city, but I lost too much time and momentum. I was making good headway on Russia when Ramesses had a comeback, and Harun jumped on the bandwagon. Lost Sigtuna to Egypt, everything else to Arabia.

 

[ssjos]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 52
Date submitted: 2013-01-31
Reference number: 28212
Your name: ssjos
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1755AD
Turns played: 261
Base score: 2165
Final score: 4163
Time played: 9:15:00

Really noob to conquest games so this was educational.

I started grabbing 3 fast expansion citites, one to left on smokes, one to right on desert hill and one to right close to tundra silver. (Arabia took copper city to south crazy fast). I did fast CB tech and since arabia expanded so close to me i attacked his copper city first. I eventually manged to take mecca even though it was sortof slow to terrain. Egypt capital fell easily afterwards. At this point Xbow was ready and i went for Ethiopia. However, terrain delayed my arrival like 10 turns and I since crazy choke and ethiopias unique ability i could quite seem to break him. I fought ethiopia for like 50 turns and then I was eventually pushed back. Ready to give up i stopped producing millitary and teched to swedish unique infantry and artillery. Once i reached these techs (I was behind in science) I was surprised to find that Russia fell easy, english and french shortly thereafter. For some reason, AI tech appeared to stop around the breakpoint of industrial era. Anyhow, I finished all civs to west easily and had some trouble still with Ethopia because really difficult choke points and that he had all defensive policies and religions in game but eventually i manged to take him also.

 

[Arnold_T]

After my losing attempt on the Diety TSG51 I thought I didn't want to make it two in row losing to the Immortal AI here, so I decided to play it safe in the opening game. Went for four city Tradition start, libraries, NC. Established good enough science to be able to push through to Rifles(Carolians) before the end of the game. Then started conquering with composite bows. The map was pretty forgiving though, and a more aggressive start is definately OK here (as both Moriate and glory7 have shown! )

I took out Egypt first, then Ethiopia & Russia. then Mayans, then Arabs (had cannons by then). then France & England (had Carolians and Gatling Guns by then).

The funnest part of this game was the religion. Totally unnecesarry BTW , but still lots of fun. I was planning to get the Holy Warrior belief, but the Mayans snatched it up before me. so I took happiness beliefs instead, and then worked to conquer a mayan city and start buying Holy Warriors there. worked great!
Once I forgot to buy the holy warriors in time though and out popped a Great Prophet I didn't need or want .
I liked how I could buy units pretty late too - "pre-industrial" still allows holy warrior faith purchases of Musketmen and Cannons!
The Guns of God I guess!

Great game, thanks Leif!

 

[Maxym]

T155

If I remember correctly, Liberty start, then early Egypt and Arabia, same time position 2nd army north of Moscow, and quick work there. Split 2nd army, into Liz and Pacal forces then combine them to take Paris.

Ethiopia was tough, he had his 20% plus another 20 from defender of faith. And a navy, while I had Xbows and some spears, and horses. I attacked in turn 125, so you can see it was a grind. I ground through slowly, eventually Dowing Egypt again to get their city a bit north of the front and get galleases and upgrade my horses there. I think I took 3 caps in the west inn the time it took me to take Addis. Focused religion on happy and kept all the caps.

here is a screen of the ethiopian peninsula.

Spoiler :

When talking to Harun I noticed an unusually long hate list, so i took a scren to share. I have been hated before, but not a throughly as this time

Spoiler :

Replayed ND got t143 with an earlier attack on Ethiopia, but he had GW this time and it was still slow. Traded Liz her cap for Moscow and few cities, as our invasion forces passed each other in the desert. Then got it all back, took Paris by getting a strike force behind it and then Dowing while defending Palenque from his assault. Interesting developments, but I really felt the luck factor, as despite me attacking earlier, it was harder as no one really bled anyone out before this time around.