TSG66 After Action thread

[cas]

Thanks - I have done this strategy lots of times already and I know that you do not have many BNW culture game experience. This sacred site rush is so broken

I'd say ICS is more to blame, although sacred sites definitely needs some tweaking.

They could easily fix ICS by making a requirement that to found or annex a city, your existing pop must be >= N+1 where N=number of cities. It would not delay initial expansion very much but would eliminate ICS. So for city5, your average pop needs to be >=6 in existing cities. For city 10, your average pop needs to be >=11, and so on.

I played my game as one city...and I learned a lot about how the new culture VC works. It was fun, and I never expected to compete...but ICS+sacred sites is just ridiculous.

Too bad culture VC's except deity diff (maybe imm) and OCC are broken. Yet another example of pushing out a game/expansion without adequate play-testing.

cas

 

[Muaziz]

I'd say ICS is more to blame, although sacred sites definitely needs some tweaking.

Sacred Sites is 100% to blame. The whole point of the new Culture VC is that Tourism takes a while to build up. Sacred Sites breaks that catastrophically early in the game. I am sure it will be nerfed in the next patch since it is completely broken.

ICS probably needs a little adjustment too, but by itself doesn't win you games.

 

[leif erikson]

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.

Welcome to GOTM.

Glad you enjoyed the game. Best of luck in future.

 

[leif erikson]

I'd say ICS is more to blame, although sacred sites definitely needs some tweaking.

They could easily fix ICS by making a requirement that to found or annex a city, your existing pop must be >= N+1 where N=number of cities. It would not delay initial expansion very much but would eliminate ICS. So for city5, your average pop needs to be >=6 in existing cities. For city 10, your average pop needs to be >=11, and so on.

I played my game as one city...and I learned a lot about how the new culture VC works. It was fun, and I never expected to compete...but ICS+sacred sites is just ridiculous.

Too bad culture VC's except deity diff (maybe imm) and OCC are broken. Yet another example of pushing out a game/expansion without adequate play-testing.

cas

Sacred Sites is 100% to blame. The whole point of the new Culture VC is that Tourism takes a while to build up. Sacred Sites breaks that catastrophically early in the game. I am sure it will be nerfed in the next patch since it is completely broken.

ICS probably needs a little adjustment too, but by itself doesn't win you games.

The point of GOTM is to explore strange new worlds, and Brave one's too, and seek out new techniques and possibilities. I do not think it is productive to "blame" anything but instead we should identify what the mechanic is and decide whether it is a bug or if it was meant to be.

Congrats to those who found this so early and used it so effectively.

I'm sure there will be more discussion on this topic.

 

[Muaziz]

The point of GOTM is to explore strange new worlds, and Brave one's too, and seek out new techniques and possibilities. I do not think it is productive to "blame" anything but instead we should identify what the mechanic is and decide whether it is a bug or if it was meant to be.

I didn't blame anyone. I have zero problem with "clever use of game mechanics".

But let's not pretend that this mechanic is anything other than horribly broken. Any mechanic where the optimal game-plan is to build as many size-1 cities as you can is clearly an exploit.

 

[kamikazees]

Reference number: 29443
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1892AD
Turns played: 316

Well, the biggest decision for me was whether to attack Morocco and Brazil to stop their cultural output, or not. I was building up for that when Portugal attacked me. I pushed her back and took her cap, but Indonesia started hating on me and built up a huge navy.

That kinda distracted me from going after them. I paid Shoeshone to attack them, and I used musicians instead on Morocco and Brazil.

I think if I had gone with the domination/cultural victory by taking their caps I could have finished faster. I am not very good at cultural games yet. I did use liberty and sacred sites, but not to the extreme that some have mentioned.

This was a great game, though. Thanks!

 

[Attaturk]

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.

I am very impressed with your T226 and T234 wins through art.
I tried a replay with two cities and only managed T242 win.

I am not sure that religious ICS is an exploit, on this map it was a sure way to win. On others, you are limited by amount of land and your neighbors. Here there were plenty of little islands to settle and spread your religion without annoying AI.

I counted 21 places where I could settle nearby. I only managed to settle 19.

On a pangea or continents map you are usually lucky to squeeze 10 and the rest you need to get through conquest.

 

[Attaturk]

I didn't blame anyone. I have zero problem with "clever use of game mechanics".

But let's not pretend that this mechanic is anything other than horribly broken. Any mechanic where the optimal game-plan is to build as many size-1 cities as you can is clearly an exploit.

Imagine that you are an ancient time island civilization that can spread around little islands (just like Polynesian tribes were) and don't go very scientific but spent all of your energy into religion. (I am talking real life). For awhile it could be quite a cultural empire compared to poor guys fighting for their life in Europe.

Eventually, modern civilization will surpass Polynesians in culture, but that will happen much later.

I think the biggest tourism I got was 72, in the art game I was getting 300+ but it was about 100T later.

 

[Schalke 04]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-04
Reference number: 29444
Your name: Schalke 04
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1650AD
Turns played: 240
Base score: 1440
Final score: 3000
Time played: 14:10:00
Submitted save: Kamehameha_0240 AD-1650.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Schalke_04_C506601.Civ5Save

I was quite surprised, that we got to play Polynesia. I was hoping for a BNW-Civ. However I was OK with that since I never played them before...

I read about this sacred site strategy and it is indeed awesome. But I didn't went for that route for two reasons:
1. I guess it will be patched out, and more important:
2. This was my first cultural game in BNW and I wanted to test how it basically works with all these Great Writers, Artists, Musicians and so on...

Therefore I am really happy with my turn 240 win.

Civilization Polynesia:
Pretty much a just UA game for me. UU und UI were absolutely useless to me. But the UA was awesome. I built scouts (and later trieremes) to discover a lot of lands, Civs, CSs and ruins early and before anyone else.

Social Policies:
Since Polynesia can settle sites before any other civ on a water based map I decided to go wide and took liberty. I was thinking a while about that since for a cultural victory tradition seems more fitting. No piety for me, as I already pointed out that I had no interest to go into that sacred sites strategy.
After liberty I went for Patronage -> Consulates. I met all/most of the CS VERY early, so this was quite appealing and profitable. Plus some good quests and I really never suffered from happiness problems even with my "wide" strategy. (I had 9 cities)
After that I went into Aesthetics mainly for the +25% bonus on Great People generation.
Ideology... I was thinking for quite a while if I wanted to go for Freedom or Order. I finally decided for Order, since it offers you two tourism enhancer tenants, while Freedom just grants you one. Oh well, it didn't matter anyways in the end...
By the time I won this game no other civilization had adopted an ideology or was even close to it.

Religion:
I wasn't sure if I wanted to go for a religion at all. Although I got some nice faith ruins which gave me the silver/gold pantheon which was definitely profitable. I went for church property and... MAJOR mistake pagodas... As I already mentioned I didn't know the cultural VC well and I thought I could get some Artist/Musicians/Writers slot due to buildings in my satellite cities... No way as I found out later So cathedrals might have been the right choice instead of pagodas. But in the end it didn't really matter. Spreading of religion was really difficult (even with my +30% range enhancer) and I managed to buy 4 (iirc) pagodas only during the course of the game... My second follower belief was the bonus to the hermitage which dind't really help as well.
So religion wise there is absolutely much potential left to improve.

Diplomacy:
Everyone loved me. Only exception was Indonesia who did not like me for settling too many cities. I had a pathetic military and was concerned if I can come away with it. But then I checked the demographics and found out that I was not that bad after all in comparison... In total I think I constructed 2 scouts and 2 trieremes. Plus one galleass later. That was it for the whole game military wise... OK, plus some military CS donations here and there. I knew that I could rush buy or hard produce some galleasses if needed, so I was not too worried. Just for the case I constructed walls in some of my "border cities".

Conclusion:
Very nice game. Archipelago + Polynesia is King (or lets say Emperor... ). I discovered the basic mechanics behind the new cultural system and I think this is a very interersting way of playing Civ5!!! I guess I will do some more cultural based games in the future.
I am a little bit confused by the difference of great works of art and artifacts though. They seem to have different meanings for the slots, but they have the same icon... I couldn't get the theming bonus for the hermitage (well it was at a point where it didn't matter, so I didn't really care). I think it was because of the difference between artifacts and works of arts. That was quite annoying, since I couldn't find out easily what is what.

It will be interesting to find out what is important for a good cultural gameplay (apart from the sacred sites strategy):
- How important is science? Science first and then cultural preference? The other way round? I constructed the parthenon for example, since I thought some early tourism pressure might not be a bad idea (especially on emperor and below). Now I think that this didn't really matter at all tourism-pressure wise, especially as the tourism modifier kick in really hard later. And for that you need science/technologies...
- What is the preferred number of cities? Are 3 enough? Leaving sacred sites and cathedals aside, you get your Great Artists/Musicians/Writers points only in your capital with the appropiate guilds. So OCC is definitely viable. Other cities can "only" help for your tourism goal by contributing for SP/culture, science, gold and production (military). I have no idea yet what is the optimal setup here. But I guess one thing is for sure: the capital must always grow and concentrate on wonders and basic buildings as much as possible.
- Is it worth to go for a religion, or do you better spend your early production into other departments? OK, with a desert folklore or natural wonder start it will always be handy. But without that I don't see a religion a necessity for a cultural victory. Although growth or culture/faith from a pantheon will always be helpful.

 

[Attaturk]

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.

Yep. That's what I was thinking. I am not fighting other civs for ruins, as Hawaiian I can get to them at a leisurely pace compared to land maps.

Also, in the test game, my limiting factor was culture, not science or religion, so my focus was to bring the culture output as high as fast as I could. Hence saving money for cultural CSes and prioritizing monument.

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

Life saver. With 19 cities it was 1900g + a few extra from nearby CSes and AI cities

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.

One of my pop 2 cities had horses so I built a circus to keep it happy.

+1 happy is just fine.

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.

Yep. No religious CSs. Three cultural. I had money only to keep two going. It was enough.

Essentially, you need to get three in piety to get the ball rolling. But you cannot skip 3 in liberty either. You need those one pop cities fast.

I don't think this strategy can be repeated on the land map, not enough room to expand and you need to warmonger. Possibly with some warring it would be ok.

 

[Muaziz]

- How important is science?

It's important, but I find that for most of the game, you are more limited by hammers in the Capitol for building Wonders.

- What is the preferred number of cities? Are 3 enough?

Two is enough. I've played about 15 BNW Culture VC games and in all of them I built 2 or 3 cities. One is obviously bad since you won't have the pop to support all the Artist Specialists, plus you can have any incoming Trade Routes to boost your Capitol.

I do think 3 is ideal, but 2 is definitely very doable.

- Is it worth to go for a religion, or do you better spend your early production in other departments?

Really depends I find, but by no means necessary. If you can get a good early Parthenon tenet that matches well with your starting location, then you can go that route. You also should have time to build the Hagia Sophia first too (sure sure if you built the Great Library).

 

[Schalke 04]

It's important, but I find that for most of the game, you are more limited by hammers in the Capitol for building Wonders.

I would say it depends on your ability to generate gold (luxuries -> early worker -> trade deals)
In an optimal world you can rush buildings like workshops or universities in your capital with gold, which gives you the hammers for the wonders.

Two is enough. I've played about 15 BNW Culture VC games and in all of them I built 2 or 3 cities. One is obviously bad since you won't have the pop to support all the Artist Specialists, plus you can have any incoming Trade Routes to boost your Capitol.

I do think 3 is ideal, but 2 is definitely very doable.

Basically more cities are always better, if you can justify them happiness wise. The point is, that you suffer from important early growth and production in your capital when you produce settlers.
I can see 4 cities when the terrain offers it. One city with a lot of jungle for a fair science boost for your empire (with a mountain even better). One production city for military needs (and caravans or achaeologists). One city on a river and a wide diversity of ressources and some trading posts for your gold income. And then the capital which focusses on wonders.
This would be like the perfect setup as far as I can tell.

Really depends I find, but by no means necessary. If you can get a good early Parthenon tenet that matches well with your starting location, then you can go that route. You also should have time to build the Hagia Sophia first too (sure sure if you built the Great Library).

Absolutely. It really all depends on the given ressources/terrain plus some luck with CSs or ruins.

 

[FeiLing]

Ruins total (in the first 100 turns): 16

0 Settled in place: Scout, Monument, Granary, Scout, Warrior, GL, Settler, NC, Shrine...
2 Ruin: Haka Spearman
10 Ruin: Culture
10 SP: Liberty opened
14 Ruin: Sailing
16 SP: Republic
16 Bought the cattle tile
21 Ruin: 20 Faith
22 Pantheon founded (2nd): Religious Idols (Gold and Silver)
23 Ruin: Scarcher1
25 Ruin: 90g
25 Ruin: +1 pop
(Anyone still think Shoshone are op?)
29 Ruin: Calender
29 SP: Collective Rule (Settler)
33 Settled right next to Jakarta. I guess his UA will make me take some of his cities later anyway (edit: no it didn't... Idiot settled only 2 more cities on his starting landmass).
35 Ruin: Culture
37 Ruin: 100g
39 Settler bought (3x70g from bullying)
41 Great Library: Philosophy
41 Ruin: 60 Faith
42 SP: Citizenship (Worker)

46 Ruin: Culture
52 6 gpt from Pocahontas for my Silver
55 Ruin: Maps
56 Ruin: 85g
58 Ruin: Scarcher2
60 SP: Piety opened
62 National College
62 Third city next to 2 lux and 2 strat resources settled.
64 6 gpt from Ahmad (who is going for Stonehenge) for my Silver
65 Fourth city next to silver, truffles and the rock of gibraltar settled.
65 Worker bought (in 3rd city).
71 Great Prophet: Religion founded: Ceremonial Burial + Pagodas
80 SP: Organized Religion (22 faith per turn now with 3 temples)
81 Ruin: 85g

85 Pagoda1 purchased
86 Worker bought (in 4th city).
88 Fifth city settled (west to Indonesia)
93 Pagoda2 purchased
94 Morocco beats me to Parthenon by 2 turns... damn, thought it was Terracotta (partial constructed they look somewhat similar).
99 Pagoda3 purchased
100 SP: Mandate of Heaven
103 Great Writer --> Great Writing
104 Pagoda4 purchased
105 Oracle: SP: Religious Tolerance (hate how that particular SP is so useless; even when you get other beliefers usually that Pantheon has no effect on you.)
112 Great Prophet: Religion enhanced: Cathedrals + Reliquary
115 SP: Reformation --> Sacred Sites

116 Great Mosque of Djenne
117 Cathedral1 bought
120 Cathedral2 bought
123 Cathedral3 bought
127 Cathedral4 bought
...
...
...
(2xx Pagoda21 and Cathedral21 bought)

171 Influential over Assyria (1/7)
187 Influential over the Shoshone (2/7)
188 Influential over Poland (3/7)
198 Influential over Indonesia (4/7)
199 Influential over Portugal (5/7)

230 War declared by Pocatello & Gajah (who both were "Neutral" with a huge list of red modifiers for about 75 turns before).
Hopefully the last Musician on it's way to Brazil won't be caught (that would cost me probably 10 turns).
Protecting the GM with a Frigatte - better safe than sorry. They plundered the trade route to Brazil though
and that seems to have cost over 20 turns... unless the GM will be enough to end the game right away.
(I also nearly lost Tuvalu to Antwerpes, haha!)

232 Influential over Morocco (6/7)
238 Influential over Brazil (7/7)

That last GM (990 Strength) was enough.
21 cities total in the end. Cathedrals though were a mistake as I didn't
fill a single of them 21 Cathedral slots; Mosques would have been a lot better.

Spoiler :

Some more pics:
http://imgur.com/a/9zNMY

PS: At those guys who finished faster than me without Sacred Sites: I hate you

PSS: I am really surprised that the "Always-top3-anyway-guys" who used Sacred Sites were THAT fast without a desert/Natural Wonder start and without any religious CS. My first Pagoda was on T85 with fastest possible Pantheon-ruin and another Faith ruin shortly after the first one and they win just a few turns later? Aha.
As cool as this whole "Win-with-Tourism-before-Tourism-happens" is, hopefully they will change it.

 

[golem]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-05
Reference number: 29447
Your name: golem
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1894AD
Turns played: 317
Base score: 1977
Final score: 3138
Time played: 8:10:00
Submitted save: Kamehameha_0317 AD-1894.Civ5Save

My second finished game on BNW. I had no idea of Sacred sites, so I did not do them, just two pagodas. I decided to conquer some neighbour's capital first, but everybody hate me soon - so the game was never ending naval war.
Comparing last GOTM it was more fun. I liked world congress, although Embargo Polynesia really hurt me.
Thanks for nice game.

 

[Tinker]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 66
Date submitted: 2013-08-05
Reference number: 29449
Your name: Tinker
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1965AD
Turns played: 385
Base score: 1690
Final score: 2194
Time played: 7:18:00
Submitted save: Kamehameha_0385 AD-1965.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Tinker_C506601.Civ5Save

This was very fun, particularly near the end. I didn't know about the Sacred Sites + ICS trick, but I did pick it as a belief and the two buildings as it seemed really useful. I only finished at turn 385, but near the end I was setting up the runaway culture Pedro against everyone else on the map (didn't help him that he had picked Freedom while the world had picked Order), and declaring war on him to bomb him with Great Musicians. In retrospect I should've taken out Gajah earlier and waged war on at least Pedro to make it a little faster, but I had fun

 

[glory7]

39 Settler bought (3x70g from bullying)
41 Great Library: Philosophy
41 Ruin: 60 Faith
42 SP: Citizenship (Worker)

60 SP: Piety opened
62 National College

80 SP: Organized Religion (22 faith per turn now with 3 temples)
105 Oracle: SP: Religious Tolerance (hate how that particular SP is so useless; even when you get other beliefers usually that Pantheon has no effect on you.)
112 Great Prophet: Religion enhanced: Cathedrals + Reliquary
115 SP: Reformation --> Sacred Sites

PSS: I am really surprised that the "Always-top3-anyway-guys" who used Sacred Sites were THAT fast without a desert/Natural Wonder start and without any religious CS. My first Pagoda was on T85 with fastest possible Pantheon-ruin and another Faith ruin shortly after the first one and they win just a few turns later? Aha.
As cool as this whole "Win-with-Tourism-before-Tourism-happens" is, hopefully they will change it.

The difference between your build and mine is

1. You went citizenship after free settler policy - this is a mistake. You need to get reformation asap. You got reformation at t115 and I believe that I got it well before t100.

2. wonder choices: you should have built stonehenge asap and ignored all other wonders. GL and NC is over-killing, in particular. No need for Parthenon too - if you want +2 from it (usually you won't need it), you can just take it from civ who built it.

 

[pkf]

played this in one big session too, perhaps should have taken break as the last 20 turns were far from optimal..

build looks similar to what attaturk and glory did. reformation was unlocked on t90. unfortunately i had two cultural runaways, both brazil (jungle pantheon) and morocco moved past 1,5k with ease. i could only kill one of them (Brazil) in time.

at least i managed to get open borders, trade routes and religion with morocco. had to place cities quite far away to do this though which delayed tourism output.

peaked at 70 tourism and was seemingly only one turn away from winning on t137 (i was one tourism short of his culture). for some reason - perhaps mansur increased his culture output or entered a golden age? - it took another two turns to finish

oh and btw, sacred sites is quite OP but far from being an exploit..

 

[Muaziz]

oh and btw, sacred sites is quite OP but far from being an exploit..

Oh btw, this is the dumbest thing posted in this thread.
Moderator Action: Please provide constructive comment, not flames.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[SeismoGraf]

Victory on turn 243.

Very dull game. Never went to war (no incentive) and nobody attacked. First war was Portugal bashing Poland on turn 208.

AI expanded very slowly, going Tradition was a mistake. Rushing Stonehenge unnecessary. My 5 cities were average - the capital was the only city able to build wonders in reasonable time. Had like 20 units, but I guess 5 would have been fine.

AI was passive on every front, not just military. They just sit there and let the player win. Portugal was happy to give 3000g for 100 GPT even a dozen turns prior to their defeat. AI Dudes selling open borders for 2 GPT, totally oblivious.

Challenge = zero.

Next time spam like 10 or more cities, abusing Sacred Sites even more... but probably I won't play culture again. It was as boring as the first Deity Maya culture win. Just noting happening until your "sudden and uncontested victory" with the big Tourism boosts.

Sorry to be so negative, but gotta be honest

Early exploration and development was pretty fun though.

 

[pkf]

Oh btw, this is the dumbest thing posted in this thread.
Moderator Action: Please provide constructive comment, not flames.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Nice manners. Are you sure you know how to distinguish between balance issues and exploits? Because if you haven't noticed, "exploit" is quite the strong word to throw around.

On the game:

In hindsight, I think enhancing right after founding might have been a critical mistake. Could probably get a few mosques (mb should have taken monasteries first) in between, increase faith output and accelerate reformation with the culture, too.