TSG66 After Action thread

[hellboar]

Joining the ranks of the newbies (first submission). I figured I'll try to stick out the ride for BNW. Turn 347 victory I think, complete pacifist. Gaja dow'd me with 3 caravels, 3 xbows, and 3 kris which caused me some food problems for 20-30 turns or I probably could have pulled it off a bit sooner. He wanted white peace very quickly. Played the tech leader role most of the game, emperor AI lulls me a bit and makes me want to wonder spam.

- What did you think of the new Culture VC?
Freedom variant mildly boring, really want to try autocracy.
- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
4 and 4
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
I had no faith generation and didn't care about religions all game. I used diplomats instead of spies in the highest culture producing civs. The diplomats really helped to maintain rising level with all civs throughout the game.
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
I went tradition 5, then Aesthetics 5, then I opened commerce, most of the rest went into Freedom tenets. I was lured into wonder spamming and I opened up Navigation to try to get Louve but lost it shortly after. Towards the end of the game I unlocked the hidden sites but had already won and had no use for them. Aesthetics seems to be very useful for culture vc.
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Gaja was frustrated with me most of the game, but was little he could do to stop me. Everyone else was basically a non issue. I was first to congress because I went double scout and met everyone with wayfaring and maintained tech leader to printing press. Had open borders and no issues all game with everyone else.
- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
Moai are clearly very strong in the right map type, if you can tech to hotels/airports fast enough to take advantage of them. Earlier culture vcs are possible with a bit of warmongering, so its hard to rank them at the top of the culture game. The warrior unit was basically a scout for me and I never made a second one. Wayfaring is almost a guaranteed world congress founder unless you are very behind in tech.
- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Gaja played the culture defense game fairly well, but a turn 340ish musician sealed the deal.

 

[leif erikson]

Joining the ranks of the newbies (first submission).

Welcome to GOTM.

 

[Muaziz]

I had no idea about sacred sites, so I played a "normal" culture game and finished at turn 232. Hopefully I can be among the fastest that didn't use sacred sites...

I too played a "normal" game and finished on t234, so you beat me by 2 turns. My write up will be posted later tonight.

 

[Monthar]

My 2nd attempt ended with a turn 173 cultural victory. A few things kept me from getting it down to the 130-150 range of our top submissions.

• I stopped building settlers to build the pyramids early. I should have saved this for when my happiness was getting low.
• I over expanded for my happiness, hitting -10+ twice. the 2nd time was over selling luxuries because the AI asked to renew a deal and I did instead of waiting for my turn to verify I actually had an extra copy still.
• I bought a pagoda in the capital as soon as I was able to combat the first happiness problem instead of waiting for the 2nd prophet to enhance.
• The delay in enhancing let someone else grab mosques, leaving me with cathedrals for the 2nd. The extra faith and culture from the mosques would have let me buy all the buildings and get through the policies faster.
• Not thinking, when I had the cash after the first wave of conversions I bought a stable in the capital instead of either another settler or a CS ally.
• After cities converted to my religion I let them grow. If I had kept them at 1-3 pop I could have planted a few more cities sooner.

I did finish piety before going back to finish liberty and used the free prophet to go spread to some of the CSs and my distant cities. Thinking about it now, if I had instead gone into Patronage for 2 policies I could have used the pledge to protect trick to have them all at friend. The extra faith, culture, happiness, units and food for the capital might have trimmed my time down more. Plus it would have made it a lot easier to get allies from quests or cash if I needed them.

 

[Muaziz]

I want to start off by saying two things: I love the great works of Arts (as someone who has visited many a museum in countries all over the world) and I love the great works of Music.

One thing I hate is that Friendly Civs will trade you cash for the equivalent gpt. Do they not know how the Mafia and Wall Street works? You gotta get your vig; you gotta get your cut. Otherwise such trades are always a no brainer which makes it bad -- it should be a trade-off.

Starting techs: Pottery -> Mining -> Writing -> AH -> Calendar
Capitol build order: Monument -> Scout -> Granary -> Shrine -> Worker -> Scout (I really like the extra Scout with Polynesia, and I needed to go steal a Worker from Antwerp to boot)
GL -> Settler -> HG (started on Oracle, but switched once I could)

Social Policies: Tradition, Legalism, Landed Elite, Arist, Monarchy, Olig (complete tree), Patronage, Consulates, Aesthetics, Fine Arts

On turn 33, I become very alarmed by the fact that there are ZERO great spots for a second city anywhere. The choices seem to be the small island to the North with Copper and Dye, or the tiny island just to the East with 2 Silver and 2 Fish (i.e., almost zero hammers ever).
If this were G&K, going OCC would be certain, but I really like a second city for Culture VC in BNW for several reasons: your Capitol won't really have the population to run 3 Guilds, I like to build Pisa and Taj in a second city since the Capitol has more important Wonders to build when those 2 techs are researched, and you can set up internal trade routes to help boost the Capitol (initially food and latter hammers).

On t38, I decided to steal Poca's Worker... just because I felt like it. Also, the last game I played, I felt like a 3rd Worker would have been nice.

Parthenon finally on t46, I chooses Religious Idols (+1 cpt and +1 fpt for Gold and Silver). I would later enhance it with Religious Arts (+5 cpt and +5 Tourism from Hermitage).

And now it is t52, with my Settler just hard built, and I still have no idea which of the 2 really crappy city spots to take.... <sigh> I eventually decide on the island to the North.

Discover Rio on t54, and man does Brazil have good production and will have great science once he gets University. Not only that, he took Sacred Path (+1cpt from Jungle tiles) so we already know where the Great Musicians are heading towards the end of the game.

t71 HG and t76 Oracle (which had been started earlier).

Bad luck with "We Love the King Days" since both my cities want a resource (Marble and Truffles) that no one has more than 1 of and that none of the City-States have.

My first GS spawns on t103 and I realize that I really don't have anywhere to build an Academy. I plan to Maoi all my coastal tiles so I decide to keep the GS for later bulbing -- something I have never ever done with my first GS.

t108 Chichen Itza which is pretty much on par with my other Culture VC games. It does help that our starting island had enough Hills.

What is still not helping is the fact that both my Allies (Pedro and Casimir) are broke so decent trades are hard to come by. They would continue to be broke for a long time.

Started on the Hagia Sophia which I don't always build, but I had the right number of turns before Education would be ready. Worked out well since this was the first game of BNW that I played (out of 15 or so) where I was not constantly spammed with Missionaries and Great Prophets.

t115 Edu. And my Trade Route gets plundered despite my Trireme being right there. <sigh>

On t123, many City-States become Friends from the 10 resting because of Pledge to Protect, and another 20 from the Consulates Social Policy (which I got before getting into Aesthetics). I then buy Ally status with several in order to complete as many quests as possible, preferably with Cultural and Maritime City-States.

And on t187 is where my strat hopefully carries the day. I bulbed 3 Great Scientists (plus completed a not necessary RA the turn prior) to complete Scientific Theory and Electricity in back-to-back turns, and completing Oxford to get Radio. Going from the Renaissance to Modern era in the span of 2 turns and getting the extra Ideology tenets in the process.

The other real important piece of my strat is to not getting Printing Press so early that you cannot get to Radio before the second World Congress resolution (for International Games). In this case, I had 2 turns to spare. By the way, the first resolution I proposed (and always passes it seems) was the Arts one (33% faster generation of Great Artist types).

I soon complete the Taj Mahal and get the "Flourishing of the Arts" (+33 cpt and starts a Golden Age) Social Policy after getting the "Universal Suffrage" tenet (for 50% longer Golden Ages) giving me a Golden Age that will last a very very long time (until the end of the game it turned out).

I got 3 trade routes plundered around t210 despite having 3 ships trying to cover all spawn points. Three enemy Barb ships showed up at once and killed one of my sentries, and 3 Cargo Ships went down before I could react. That cost me about 3 turns on getting a Hotel in Honolulu due to immediately crippling my funds and sending me into -50gpt.

t224 Media Culture (+34% Tourism if city has a Broadcast Tower). This is the last Social Policy that matters.

On t225, the People with the Pointiest Sticks is announced. Shockingly, I am only second to last despite having exactly two garrisoned units (Pedro somehow has less).

On t226, I get my first Influential Civ (over Assyria). Not surprisingly, Brazil has the highest Culture, but all other Civs are doing decent.

Now we just have to wait for the International Games to be completed... but unfortunately, another Civ nominated the World's Fair (which also passed) so that will likely slow down the building time which is bad.

t234 Culture Victory which surprised me a little since my second Great Musician was still one turn away from reaching Brazil. And this is the first time I win a BNW Culture VC before completing the International Games (didn't help that most other Civs were working on the World Fair). But this was one of my fastest Culture VCs in 15 or so BNW games.

 

[Parallax]

Total newbie here! Managed to "win" my game, but the AI went utterly insane in a global battle royale. Had to put the poor map out of its misery with a diplomatic victory around turn 450. Will give this epic match the full writeup it deserves later. So far people have had relatively passive opponents so you should find my extremely divergent experience interesting.

For the OP questions: Love the new culture/tourism system but I think it's too dependent on world wonder theming bonuses (unless you abuse sacred sites). It would be great if my epic quest to fill the Louvre wasn't entirely dependent on me being the first person to complete it (or capture). Having to take culture centers by force seems like defeating the purpose of a culture victory, which is intended to be peaceful (as denoted by the important open borders and trade route bonuses, and diplomats only work in peacetime).

Anyway, I had a ton of fun playing this, even though I failed at the stated objective.

 

[Gamewizard]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-02
Reference number: 29418
Your name: Gamewizard
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1856AD
Turns played: 298
Base score: 2605
Final score: 4415

A fun game, thank you staff.

Started with a combination of liberty and piety. I expanded as fast as happiness dictated, which never seemed to be a problem thanks to luxuries and pagodas. Instead of the tourism from religious buildings reformation belief I instead went with the science building purchase with faith one. Once I hit public schools the AI was never within 10 techs of me, even with the 5% science penalty per city making my techs super expensive. I also went into exploration tree for major happiness, gold, and production enhancers, dipped into rationalism for specialist science, and then raced through freedom thanks to world's fair.

Everything got a Maui statue, even luxuries at the end. Hotels plus the world games ended me with over 500 tourism per turn. I had to conquer all of Morocco (the only one who cared about culture apparently) to shave 15-20 turns off my time, but the AI stood no chance against those foreign legions.

 

[Zilkin]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-03
Reference number: 29419
Your name: Zilkin
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1950AD
Turns played: 370
Base score: 1798
Final score: 2429

I won, but the two words I'd use to describe this game was laziness and stupidity. First of all my faith production was absolutely abysmal, last few games I've played were with Arabia and Ottomans on with Desert Folklore so I guess I kinda forgot how it was to play without that. The point I actually realized this was too late to fix it. I found my religion last and never even actually bothered trying to spread since I simply didn't have enough faith to do so, got the hermitage +5 culture/tourism just for the capital. This was my first failure.

My second failure was me being too lazy to go to war with the, by far, top culture Civ in my game which was Indonesia. If I had reduced their culture production early I could easily won this game probably hundred turns earlier.

My final, and probably stupidest, mistake was my final Great Musician bomb I did on Indonesia to finish the game. They kinda hated me at the end for some reason so I bought OB for a heavy price, but since the game was about to end anyway I didn't care. Anyway I moved 3 GMs to their turf for concert tours, and ended getting influential with them with 8k tourism over what was needed... Another thing that could have reduced at least couple dozens turns from my turns needed...

Overall it was fun game. Indonesia on Archipelago is completely overpowered, especially at the start. This game did remind me though why I never play on this map type, the AI is completely unable to handle it. I was attacked couple times because I kept very small army, but the AI's attack were just completely pitiful.

What did you think of the new Culture VC?
- I think it's the most fun win condition now!

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
6-7

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
As I said earlier I completely failed with religion, spies I just used to spread tourism.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
I started with tradition, then aethestics, with some ratiolism trickled in. Picked freedom as my ideology with whatever tenets help me get culture win.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
I had DoF with most of the AI civs throughout the game.

- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
Definitely. The instant embarkment got like dozen+ goody huts, good info on where to settle and obviously contacts with the other civs. Moais were also much used on this map.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Not any huge runaway's. Indonesia was the top AI culture civ, but I wouldn't really call them a proper runaway.

 

[leif erikson]

Total newbie here! Managed to "win" my game, but the AI went utterly insane in a global battle royale. <snip>

Anyway, I had a ton of fun playing this, even though I failed at the stated objective.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you enjoyed it, best of luck in future.

 

[AlanH]

@Monthar: I've persuaded the submission system to accept your file, and here are the real results:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-03
Reference number: 29421
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1946AD
Turns played: 366
Base score: 2609
Final score: 3573
Time played: 9:15:00

 

[nick50]

I thought I had this game all sewn-up at turn ~250, but I really took my eye off the ball. I ended up losing masses of influence after an ideology split, meaning I had to take some military action, something I had completely neglected throughout the game.

It ended up being a bit of a slog to and I think the game got bored of me in the end!

My key mistakes were:

*Not going nearly tall enough

*Not taking military action early enough against a cultural rival (I thought I was over the line already)

*Over-use of the maoi statues completely stifled my growth, but I was too stubborn to get rid of them.

Still - It was my first cultural victory on BNW and my first with Polynesia. Also my first GOTM submission. Hopefully I can improve my game here.

Congratulations to everyone who beat this, especially to some of those turn times... Impressive!

 

[AlanH]

Hi

Are you planning to submit that save? If so, please use the usual submission page

As the submission system has just had an extensive overhaul for BNW, it needs all the exercise it can get!

 

[Monthar]

@Monthar: I've persuaded the submission system to accept your file, and here are the real results:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-03
Reference number: 29421
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1946AD
Turns played: 366
Base score: 2609
Final score: 3573
Time played: 9:15:00

Thanks and glad I could help with sorting out the issues.

 

[tommynt]

After cities converted to my religion I let them grow. If I had kept them at 1-3 pop I could have planted a few more cities sooner.

@Montar: I m pretty sure that all the stuff u mention is kinda minor. The key to sub 160 was to eliminate 1 "runaway" maybe even 2. And well yes the key to sub 140 was to spam more cities. I think i had only like 8 and letting them grow certainly didnt hurt ..

Also spaming cities all over world to get trade routes for modifier seems important.

I dont think enhancing early is good.. There are enough differnt faith building too choose if some1 really picks mosques which is unlickly anyway ..

 

[Monthar]

That's just it, I didn't have enough cities spread far enough for the trade routes to everyone. Brazil was the runaway, at least culture wise, followed by Indonesia then the Shoshone. I tried to take Brazil out, but stalled out and lost most of my military due in part to their superior tech.

 

[Attaturk]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-03
Your name: Attaturk
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 475AD
Turns played: 134
Base score: 654
Final score: 2515
Time played: 1:35:00

This was very hilarious and quick game, being an emperor game and Kamehameha settlers could cross the ocean from the get go, it was ICS until the very last turn.

This is the first GotM game where my capital stayed at 4 pop for the entire game.
All other cities save two were at pop 1. I allowed two cities to grow to 2 as I wanted them to help building settlers and build writer guild.

liberty until free settler, piety opener, +1 faith, cheaper bought building - reformation - finish piety - one in Aesthetics to get faster great writer

Initial build, monument - scout - granary - worker - SH - settler - until I ran out of happiness - Oracle - shrine - temple - settler - ...

built one worker, stole another from CS. Did not need more than two workers. My capital only had 4 citizens, so only 4 tiles to improve ;-)

2nd city: monument - shrine - scout - caravan - settler - temple - writer guild - granary

others: shrine - monument - something - temple - something - market

Tech: pottery - calendar - mining - masonry (hut) - trapping - philo - drama - currency - sail - tried to beeline CS but my research rate was abysmal. Luckily others got CS before me so I was able to get open borders.

Pantheon: +1 faith +1 culture from gold and silver
religion: +100 on city convert, mosques and monasteries.

With cities being at pop 1, I did not need extra happiness of pagodas, mosques will give me +3 faith and monasteries are only 120

Initial buy order was, 110 missionary - monastery while able - mosques - monasteries - etc.

There were no wars, only Indonesian guy complained about my first city (small island on the east with two silvers), otherwise, all of my cities were very close.

Before oracle, I put cities on every resource nearby plus 3 cities around my capital, so as to get quick 300g from conversion. Then oracle, two other cities build two more settlers, bought one, then capital continued settling.

My last settler was on ice with no food or hammers, but, I had a prophet on standby and plenty of faith to get a monastery and mosque on the turn the city was settled. Not sure if it was needed, I won the next turn ;-)

Money: did not spend any until I got 500g and bough a cultural state, than 500g on another cultural, renewal here and there, 500g settler

 

[Muaziz]

I replayed this map a second time (without the exploit again), but this time built a 3rd city (to the east on the Hill next to the 2 Silvers). The only other thing that I did that was different from my last game (apart from the 3rd city) was build the Parthenon. The rest of the game was eerily similar. Managed a t226 VC -- an 8 turn improvement. Not sure if that was due to building the Parthenon or the extra city. Probably could have won 2 turns earlier if I had noticed I had a Great Work (with a matching bonus) in another city that I didn't see for a long time. I don't think map knowledge helped at all since my exploration pattern was very similar.

Curious to read more write-ups from folks that didn't use the Sacred Sites exploit. And yes, any game where building 20 size-1 cities is the optimal strategy is an exploit.

 

[glory7]

Initial build, monument - scout - granary - worker - SH - settler - until I ran out of happiness - Oracle - shrine - temple - settler - ...

Pantheon: +1 faith +1 culture from gold and silver
religion: +100 on city convert, mosques and monasteries.

Money: did not spend any until I got 500g and bough a cultural state, than 500g on another cultural, renewal here and there, 500g settler

Nice job! (frankly speaking, I did not expect to see the faster result)

Limiting population to 1.. that was quite extreme but it seems that it works out well.

Main difference between your build and mine is

1. I went 2 scouts before monument - it helped me to get ruins and meet CS faster, but it was islands map and only poly gets the access to most of the places anyway... maybe I should have built monument earlier.

2. +100 gold for religion. This is absolutely my fault that I chose +2 gold per city.

3. monastery instead of pagada: I got pagoda to counter happiness, but as you said, if I limited pop to 1, I only needed to mosque .. well done.

4. culture CS: connected to +100 gold thing, but I didn't have any good quest from culture CS and did not have enough money. Allying culture/religious (there was none at this game, right?) CS is key for fast finish.

 

[drifter238]

For these crazy-fast ICS wins - on what turn are you unlocking Sacred Sites? How many cities did you have? I think I may be overexpanding early on, driving up the SP cost too much.

 

[Yackeroeni]

- What did you think of the new Culture VC?

New Culture VC is epic. I have 2 wins in the new culture now, one with freedom and this one with order and it is a lot of fun. I like how it is much more interactive than the old one. The combination of the world congress and the new tourism culture game is really nice. Being able to force your religion or ideology on the world if you work for it is really beneficial for the culture win.


- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?

Built 4 cities like the old culture game, based on tradition. I expanded heavily to the west with those 4 cities, having Samoa on the little island to the south of the starting island, Tonga on the southern part of the Indonesian island, and Nuku Hiva even further west on the south eastern part of the Moroccan island. I ended the game having those 4 original cities and 2 puppets which were originally Indonesian, taken from him after he DoW'ed someone I had a defensive pact with.


- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?

Religion didn't work for me because some other nations close to me were very focused on spreading their own religion, hindering the spread of my own. Spying I used very little, and the diplomats neither.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?

I started tradition, finishing the tree before starting aesthetics. After finishing aesthetics I went and got exploration. After taking 2 policies in rationalism, I adopted the Order ideology as the first civilization to have an ideology and I immediately pushed for Order as the world ideology in the world congress. This succeeded and all the other civs took Order as well, giving me the 34% bonus to other Order civs and taking all the local happiness tenets in order, gave me another 34% bonus.


- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

I tried a mainly peaceful game, which went pretty well. Because of taking some stupid defensive pacts I got into 2 wars, one with Indonesia and one with Portugal, both of which I swiftly ended by forcing a peace with benefits for me. The Indonesian war netted me 2 puppet cities and the Portugese war ended in me getting quite a bit of money and luxuries.


- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?

The UU I barely used, the UA on the other hand is almost OP on archipelago. Being able to quickly scout the map gave me more ancient ruins than I have ever had in a game and a very easy expansion to 4 cities. The Moai as well were very helpful for the extra culture.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?

Nope


Thanks for this incredible game, this was both my first GOTM and first emperor game and it was really fun. I'm really looking forward to more BNW GOTM's.