TSG54 After Action Report

[Monthar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted: 2013-02-05
Reference number: 28258
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1816AD
Turns played: 278
Base score: 1321
Final score: 2401
Time played: 7:24:00
Submitted save: TSG54_Science_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C505401.Civ5Save

I moved the warrior to the copper and saw that I had 2 cows to the NW, so I settled 1 tile west because that tile was still on the river and next to the mountain and it put both cows in the capital's 3 rings.

I built 3 academies, 2 on the 2 cows mentioned above and 1 on the non-river wheat. The rest I used to bulb with.

Policies
All of Liberty, then just to two in Patronage to have all city states at friend with just the policy and pledge to protect. Then all but the RA booster in Rationalism, to the factory boost in Order, finished Rationalism to get to Satellites then got 1 more policy in Order near the end to reduce building maintenance.

I didn't even need Oxford.

No wars and no research agreements.

 

[pkf]

I share your pain - even with good finish times, the fact that one should have done (much) better is really painful.

I agree with you that you should have annexed 2-3 more cities to get higher science, especially if you chose freedom instead of order (then you have no factory bonus). with 4 cities, your max spt is at most 1100.. and that's usually not enough. I feel that annexed caps produce ~100 spt (before rat opener 15% bonus) and 2-3 annexed cities do make difference (I learnt this from tommynt's play) as those additional 200~300 spt affect your GS bulbing too.

For coal, I agree - I could not believe that I have a single source coal (3 coals, north of madrid, in the jungle) when I popped up industrialization as I already had quite big area - mine + england + carthage + spain. I sent one of my GG to claim 7 coal source near the east coast CS. Also, city states did not have them too... one had it within 2 rings but it did not contain that area within its border so I cannot give 200g to improve it. I had similar problem with uranium - I spent 200g to Jerusalem, CS at SW, to get 2 uranium and bought nuclear plant at cap and tikal.

I think we can get sub 200 with replay - I will definitely try replay this weekend. It usually takes 40~50 turns to get all parts done after plastics, but with enough money and early conquest one can reach ~1300 spt after within 5~10 turns of plastics and bulb GS to get apollo tech faster.

Ye, you can try to play tommy style but his amazing times really come from his late game anticipation, I think.

I think CS only grant you coal/uranium/aluminium when they have the required tech as well.. which is kinda frustrating on lower difficulties =/

My gpt was very high (400-500) so it shouldnt be the usual 40-50 turns. You could share your save =)

 

[Halcyan2]

Not the fastest finishing time, but respectable.

Spent most of the game with 4 cities, but built another 4 around the time I got Plastics (t180).

In the early to mid game, I didn't have the population to support many scientist specialists. My capital grew well, but went wonder crazy (oops)! My other three cities struggled with growth despite the Tradition aqueducts. Placement might have been an issue - I settled all of them next to mountains to maximize science yield, but they were a bit lacking in lush food tiles. I did spend most of the game happy so that wasn't the issue.

After researching Astronomy, I forgot to change all my production to Observatories for a few turns. I also delayed Industrial for awhile (for cheaper RA's and faith purchases) which I really shouldn't have. I should have just bit the bullet to get Public Schools ASAP. Also took awhile to get Coal - I delayed founding an extra city so I could finish a few National Wonders (stupid, really) and I should have just settled directly on the coal rather than wait to mine it. That would have spend up my Factories by about 10 turns (and my Research Labs as a result). Also, when pre-building for Apollo, I had Himeji ready at 1 turn but stupid Russia started building it and so I needed to finish it instead of using it for hammer overflow.

RA's got me within shooting distance of Rocketry. Burned a GS but was still 1 turn too short (darn, since that would have ruined my overflow plans) so I had to then use a second GS to get Rocketry. With hammer overflow of (Circus -> Coliseum -> Bank -> Kremlin -> Louvre), it took only 3 turns to finish Apollo.

The end game was interesting in that I was trying to figure out what would be the bottleneck: Production (for spaceship parts), Science (to research the remaining techs), or Culture (for Rationalism finisher). Initially I thought it would be science so I modified my plans accordingly, so it ended up being production (my capital produced all of the spaceship parts).

Despite all those mistakes, I still clawed my way to a decent victory with 17 research agreements.

I was Friends with Byzantium and Carthage from the beginning, and China was easy to win over. Did 3 RA's with each of them. It took a bit of work but eventually England (3 RA's) joined in on the fun. Becoming friends with Spain and Russia was much harder (2 RA's each). The Celts were a tough nut to crack but eventually they did contribute with 1 RA. My game would have been much better if England/Spain/Russia had been a bit easier to befriend.

A very peaceful game. I never got into a war.

Carthage and Spain teamed up against England but no one ever took any cities. In the West, there was peace for a long time. Eventually Byzantium attacked the Celts and took one city and later China declared on Byzantium but no cities were taken.

I was eventually friends with everyone. There was a Byzantium/Russia/Carthage/Spain bloc, though China was also friends with Spain. England and the Celts were both on the outs - I was their only friend and they were pretty much denounced by the entire friend bloc.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Halcyan2, I'm missing one crucial tidbit in your write-up.

What was the victory turn, haha?

 

[Halcyan2]

Halcyan2, I'm missing one crucial tidbit in your write-up.

What was the victory turn, haha?

Not the fastest so far. Nor the slowest so far.

 

[Browd]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted: 2013-02-08
Reference number: 28270
Your name: Browd
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1730AD
Turns played: 256
Base score: 1418
Final score: 2780
Time played: 7:44:00
Submitted save: Pacal_0256 AD-1730.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Browd_C505401.Civ5Save

Bah, lackluster finish after such a promising start.

Picking up from the t.130 post, DOWed Spain and had puppeted one city when my DOF and RA with Carthage expired (forgot I had them when I posted earlier), liberated Kuala Lumpur, puppeted Carthage and accepted peace (Liz took Carthage's only other mainland city. Shifted army back to Spain, DOWed, and puppeted Madrid, but England (DOF and RA at that point) sniped Barcelona from the sea, so I did a peace treaty with Spain and abandoned further war. Puppets came too late to make more than the most modest of contributions.

As I look back at this, I made some bad choices early on, even though those choices did enable a quicker start. I'd never done a Liberty science victory, and thought it would be OK with enough cities, but the lack of growth in my capital and the other cities was a real problem. Even building/buying aqueducts and chasing maritime CS quests could not make up for lost growth and time due to (1) stagnation from spamming settlers from my capital for nearly 20 turns and (2) not having Landed Elite or the Tradition finisher. My 7 cities ended up at 19, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, and 10 pop, which is not nearly good enough for a quick finish. Was able to get 2 RAs per cycle with Theodora and Liz (actually 5 RAs total, since the AI was usually short too much gold for me to bridge the gap). Didn't get Plastics until turn 202, which is pretty darn poor.

The other social policy mistake was taking 2 points in Tradition in addition to Liberty. Those two policies provided negligible benefit (Aristocracy was helpful for early GL and NC), but meant I got into Patronage much later than I should have, which delayed significantly the benefits of Aesthetics + Pledge to Protect, which meant further delayed growth, culture and faith. Also never built temples, so faith generation (particularly after Russia ate Jerusalem) never got above 30 fpt -- enough for 2 GSs and 2GEs, but that's it.

Religion choices were also suboptimal. The AI was slow to grow their cities, so tithe underperformed Church Property until about turn 190 -- should have taken Church Property. Also, the shrine culture pantheon did not make enough of a contribution. Given the amount of jungle tiles I ended up working, Sacred Path would have been a much better pantheon than Ancestor Worship.

I'm tempted to replay this with straight Tradition to see how much of a difference it makes. I suspect 25-30 turns faster, with better choices. Can't fathom glory7's t.205 finish.

 

[glory7]

Ye, you can try to play tommy style but his amazing times really come from his late game anticipation, I think.

I think CS only grant you coal/uranium/aluminium when they have the required tech as well.. which is kinda frustrating on lower difficulties =/

My gpt was very high (400-500) so it shouldnt be the usual 40-50 turns. You could share your save =)

I believe that this is the one right before the plastics... I try to attach a screenshot of that turn.

 

[glory7]

I believe that this is the one right before the plastics... I try to attach a screenshot of that turn.

ok it seems to be working.. I add t161 (3 labs bought) and t166 (main 4 cities have labs up and annexed carthage and bought uni to hit spt 1000 - will buy more sci buildings at previous caps)

 

[pkf]

ok it seems to be working.. I add t161 (3 labs bought) and t166 (main 4 cities have labs up and annexed carthage and bought uni to hit spt 1000 - will buy more sci buildings at previous caps)

your cities seem to be bigger than mine. and your war was fought earlier which makes quite the difference i reckon.

i will try both your and my save tomorrow, this is mine at t160 (just after plastics) btw. carthage down next turn.

btw: not to take anything away, but i think masonry early on (or mining) from a ruin is really helpful for fast times on this map. i missed it a lot.

 

[Carazycool]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted: 2013-02-09
Reference number: 28276
Your name: carazycool
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1862AD
Turns played: 301
Base score: 2604
Final score: 4340
Time played: 4:05:00
Submitted save: gotm.Civ5Save
Renamed file: carazycool_C505401.Civ5Save

I immediately went for pottery>writing>GL>Philosophy>NC>Theology

Something cool that happened was that I popped my first Great Prophet on the same turn that I got a B'ak'tun Great Person. I chose a second great prophet and founded and enhances my religion on the same turn. I also had timed the Hagia Sophia so it completed the turn immediately after...so I got 3 GPs in 2 turns :^)

I got Theology around turn 50 and ended up going through the entire Great Person list and then even got to choose 1 more after that. The list reset and I could choose any that I wanted again.

 

[tomoliop]

Damn you people with your sub 300 wins, how da hell do you do that... I finished on 346, hoped to shave off few turns using GE on last part - my bad... I went with Liberty, settled initially 5 cities, then in late game a sixth due to lack of coal and iron in my other lands. Didn't wipe anyone, took some puppets. I gotta start writing down my victory turns, cause I don't know if this is my fastest or not... Nevertheless this was quite enjoyable (though I was very tempted to do ICS, I decided to go with the proper VC).

 

[beestar]

T290 victory

I went up the Tradition tree and settled 4 cities quickly, but Dido and Isabella DOWed me early on, and due to my counterattack I ended up having 9 cities instead of 4. England was unfriendly all game so I probably should have taken her out as well (I was afraid of warmonger diplo penalties, probably wrong to do so) So maybe I should have taken Liberty and gone wider.

How do you manage to fill out so many SPs? I completed Tradition and Rationalism, and by the end of the game I had 2 in Commerce and 2 in Order. I have a hard time seeing how I would squeeze Liberty in there.

 

[glory7]

Not the fastest finishing time, but respectable.

Spent most of the game with 4 cities, but built another 4 around the time I got Plastics (t180).

RA's got me within shooting distance of Rocketry. Burned a GS but was still 1 turn too short (darn, since that would have ruined my overflow plans) so I had to then use a second GS to get Rocketry. With hammer overflow of (Circus -> Coliseum -> Bank -> Kremlin -> Louvre), it took only 3 turns to finish Apollo.

Despite all those mistakes, I still clawed my way to a decent victory with 17 research agreements.

A very peaceful game. I never got into a war.

Very impressive. I haven't thought of doing apollo pre-building. I learnt what pre-building is like several gotm ago and tried it couple of times, but only for utopia. After plastics, it's usually annoying to wait 7-9 turns for apollo after bulbing some GS.

17 RA... I just can't even imagine. I believe that great part of this game, civ 5, is that there are various strategies, so I would love to read how these peaceful, RA using games work.

How many turns you save with each RA after early game, say after entering renaissance or industrial? I feel like each RA only saves you like 2-3 turns unless it's deity (maybe also immortal) level and opportunity cost of RAs (money, maintaining good relationships instead of getting gold out of them) outweigh the benefit.

I just get max golds out of AIs and rush buy most sci buildings that I need. Sure, every AI hates me.. but they pay golds for peace deals and some of them could not even reach renaissance when I finished spaceship parts.

 

[gkreitz]

Game:	Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted:	2013-02-10
Reference number:	28291
Your name:	gkreitz
Game status:	Science Victory
Game date:	1585AD
Turns played:	[B]227[/B]
Base score:	1367
Final score:	3037
Time played:	9:43:00

Fun game to play, and I'm happy with the time. Sadly, had a week-long conference in the middle of this game, so I don't really remember much details for the early part. Early game Dido and Spain did a joint DoW. I didn't really want to waste too much on military at that point, so the war ended with me taking and burning Barcelona. This, together with a Dido who didn't seem to settle cities for most of the game resulted in England dominating those two (but never exterminating them).

Kept Theo, Wu, and Cathy happy throughout with constant RAs, with the rest of the bunch refusing to be friends. Settled 5 cities relatively early on (including a fantastic Petra city in the desert to the west. Took 2 more mid-game (one by the Gems northwest, and one to take silver + coal (+ oil, which I didn't know when settling it) far up north in the desert).

Religion-wise I took growth pantheon, Tithe, pagoda, production, and religious text and had almost all of the world (at game end - 62 cities for me and two other religions with 1 city each). All the AIs were ridiculously late to religions.

Managed to do a bit better timing in the end game than I usually do which helped cut off a few turns.

 

[Halcyan2]

Very impressive. I haven't thought of doing apollo pre-building.

Once I reach Rocketry, I usually find my capital building Apollo -> Hubble (preferably with a GE) -> Spaceship parts for the rest of the game, unless I have to wait for my research. So since I have a long production queue, any pre-building helps speeds things up.

17 RA... I just can't even imagine. I believe that great part of this game, civ 5, is that there are various strategies, so I would love to read how these peaceful, RA using games work.

Half the AI's in this game were hard to befriend. I've had other games where I've easily had 25+ research agreements.

The main challenge is keeping on good terms with the other AI's, which includes not pissing them off (to avoid red modifiers) and trying to stack the positive green modifiers.

How many turns you save with each RA after early game, say after entering renaissance or industrial? I feel like each RA only saves you like 2-3 turns unless it's deity (maybe also immortal) level and opportunity cost of RAs (money, maintaining good relationships instead of getting gold out of them) outweigh the benefit.

Near the end, the final RA's were giving me about 5000-6000 beakers, when I was at around 1000-1200 beakers per turn. I think my early round of RA's was giving me about 1500 beakers, when I was probably around 300 a turn. So I'd roughly estimate that I was getting about 5 turns worth of research (5 turns worth when it triggered). Maybe I should try to keep track the next time I play.

 

[Pizzaspy]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 54
Your name: Pizzaspy
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1890AD
Turns played: 315
Base score: 1536
Final score: 2438
Time played: 6:43:00

Got off to an amazing start and then slogged for a while mid-game. Then in the modern era, things fell into place ridiculously quickly with several GS, hubble, etc

Not sure what I should do differently between renaissance and modern era to get to the end techs faster.

 

[Suntechnique]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted: 2013-02-12
Reference number: 28305
Your name: Suntechnique
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1740AD
Turns played: 258
Base score: 1505
Final score: 2950
Time played: 3:14:00

All girls map, nice

Was a bit slow due to reluctance to war Game crashed once.

 

[Maxym]

Science Victory
Game date:1640AD
Turns played:238
Base score:1958
Final score:4165

I wonder if played right liberty can be competitive in this setting with Tradition. I am not a Liberty player, as demonstrated here. I have not settled my 5th city until after plastics,

I did puppet quite a bit starting with Dido, then Liz, Isabella and finally Theodora. I have brought back Boudica from the dead, to get some more cash but she was broke.

I have lagged most of the game: t188 plastics, hard teched. Then i had to burn 4 GS and Oxford to get to rocketry and hubble. Since my bpt was quite low at that point it was a bit of a waste but i neede to get appollo up fast to catch up. i think i had the tech on t 205. Then I run out of GS to get the last techs. I bought another prophet late and it was a huge blunder. I would have shaved 4 or maybe 5 turns as i was just 400 faith short of GS at t 230. I used the time to prebuild some overflow items to speed up last part when i finally got the GS. When i got it i got 3 of them 1 from natural city generation, one from faith and one from reset Long count.

just after getting plastics and starting on Theodora, after I DoWed her, soon i got DOWed by Dido, Cathy, Liz and Wu:

Spoiler :

If i had built gardens in 2 of my cities early i would have 2 more natural GSs, but i didnt think i could get them so i didnt bother.

Some take home lessons:

-pick tradition
-settle 3 GS in cap especially since they came very early here and cap had observatory (is that how you guys had t160 plastics?)
- annex earlier and build science infrastructure. (i was late to annex, again in 200s and it hurt me) I maxed at 1505 beakers/t but very late only for last few GS.
- settle more cities
- keep culture up early so you can get 2 SP in patronage as Tabarnakk did. I went straight from Lib to Rationalism
- And if you see lots of empty space and the girls are friendly dont beat them up, get some RAs going like Halcyan
- get plastics with Oxford or bulb, even if not enough cash on hand for all labs (thats why i hard teched, but i should have used Oxford, had it prebuilt anyway, get lab in cap only and keep saving for rest)

I think if i only took some cities from Isabella I could have had 3 or even 4 RA partners. That woulld give me enough puppets and would boost me through tech tree fatser even with only 5 turns per RA.

 

[WarIsPeace]

Game:	Civ5 GOTM 54
Date submitted:	2013-02-14
Reference number:	28313
Your name:	WarIsPeace
Game status:	Science Victory
Game date:	1826AD
Turns played:	283
Base score:	1492
Final score:	2664
Time played:	6:24:00

I felt OK about my finish until I saw what others had done. Clearly, I still have plenty of room to improve.

- What were your initial priorities?
Scout and figure out what kind of world I was on. I'm often slow to settle my 2nd and 3rd cities and wanted to make sure I got good locations. Indeed, I beat Dido to my choice of locations by 1-2 turns.

- What tech path did you follow?
I got writing quickly and since I had a powerhouse of a capital I tried (and succeeded) a building the GL. Used that to get Philosophy, built Oracle. After than I bounced all over but mostly prioritized the big science ones (education, scientific theory, plastics)

- Were there any early wars and who started them?
On t69 I bribed Dido to attack England to create some bad blood between them and weaken them both.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Took Liberty because I like it; the advantages of Tradition always seem undermined by happiness problems in my games. Since I got Oracle and was allied with Kuala Lumpur for the whole game I completed a lot of policies before I could open Rationalism. I spent them on Patronage since I already had lots of city state alliances. Eventually completed Rationalism after dipping into Order to get the +25% science from factories.

- Did you do find your UU and UB useful?
Atlatlists were nice cheap barb hunters that allowed me to get a lot of CS alliances early. As for the GPs from the Long Count -- who doesn't like a free GS or GE? +2 science from the shrine makes them a must-build, although I always build shrines anyway.


I got lucky early with ruins and CS alliances. I dominated my game and for most of it was a full era ahead of everyone but the second in tech. I should have gotten a better finish time. I didn't manage my endgame so well; by the time I took the Rationalism closer (2 free techs) I was already researching the last tech I needed to finish the spaceship. I think I got too distracted throwing around my military weight and wonder whoring. The only wonder I tried to build and missed was Louvre which I really wanted since I had CI and it would have given me a 30 turn golden age. Also could have built more cities or annexed some of my puppets. I kept waiting for the big happiness crunch to come and it never really did.

I lost potential RA partners China and Byzantium by bullying England and eventually Russia. I should have just gritted my teeth through all the tech stealing but eventually I just felt that heads had to roll. I'm sure you know the feeling...

This was the first game where I took notes which was a little tedious but now I'm glad I did.

t78 - First to found religion
t83 - Finished Liberty, took a GE
t95 - used GE to rush Chichen Itza (had already hard built GL and Oracle)
t102 - 53bpt, 34cpt, 16fpt, 17 happy
t104 - Enhanced religion. China, Russia, Spain and England had no pantheon and I thought that they could not get one once I enhanced. Apparently that is incorrect. Dominating religiously was part of my plan since I'd taken Tithe as one of my beliefs and expected my religion to turn into a cash machine. Celts & Carthage had pantheons, Byzantium had a religion.
t112 - Celts founded a religion, I complete GMoD.
t121 - Remove Dido's knife from my back (we had a DOF)
t137 - Russia gets a pantheon - hey, that's not supposed to happen!!
t145 - Rushed Notre Dame with GE from Long Count
t147 - Captured Gades from Dido
t150 - 152bpt, 56cpt, 20gpt, 30fpt, 26 happy
t151 - Russia founds a religion
t156 - Captured Carthage, rush bought observatory in Palenque
t158 - opened rationalism
t162 - Captured Utique to eliminate Dido
t163 - Byzantium finishes the Celts
t164 - Completed LToP
t169 - 278bpt, 66cpt, 39fpt, 67gpt, 23 happy
t174 - Enter industrial era w/scientific theory
t176 - 342bpt, 103cpt, 84gpt, 47fpt, 21 happy
t183 - completed Porcelain Tower
t184 - I DOW England with my buddy Isabella.
t197 - After capturing 2 English cities, a SotL pillages my pearls and I'm in negative happy (-1) for the first time in the entire game.
t199 - Peace w/England in exchange for Hastings
t200 - 461bpt, 82cpt, 47fpt, 33gpt, -5 happy
t201 - Completed Taj Mahal
t202 - Entire empire has 0 coal, 0 oil, and 3 Aluminum.
t213 - Researched plastics by burning a GS
t214 - Bought research lab in Palenque. 775bpt, 152cpt, 47fpt, 302gpt (golden age), 16 happy
t215 - Old friends (and RA partners) China and Byzantium denounce me
t226 - 985bpt (after taking Order policy where factories give +25% science), 130cpt, 49fpt, 216gpt, 5 happy.
t245 - I DOW Russia after Cathy steals tech after tech after tech.
t253 - completed Apollo
t257 - Hubble Space Telescope
t283 - Launched. 1420 bpt, 213cpt, 49fpt, 341gpt, 47 happy.

 

[leif erikson]

I felt OK about my finish until I saw what others had done. Clearly, I still have plenty of room to improve.

Most of us do need quite some improvement.

Welcome to CivFantics and GOTM.

Glad you found us and best of luck in future.