TSG67 After Actions

[Blicero]

Thanks HR. Sorry for those screens, but that's what it looks like on a macbook.

I forgot to answer the questions:

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
Well, I built three cities and intended to acquire 3 more (Riga, Rio, and Sao Paolo). But I ended up acquiring all of Brazil, most of Persia, and an Assyrian city. But that's a little problem I have, and anyway with the exception of Brazil, they started it.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Built Stonehenge and established a major religion. Later used my totalitarian position in the world congress to force the World Religion (but I didn't need to). Used spies all game long to get CS and in the end also put them all in as diplomats. The thing was the end wasn't even close, so these things didn't matter on the margins.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Was going well until Brazil nabbed a couple of wonders that I couldn't resist. All downhill diplomacy from there.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I am used to Diety / Immortal, so underestimated the AI's ability to get wonders and Caz beat me by 2 turns on Petra. That changed things dramatically I think.

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?
Yes. In hindsight it's all about science (if you're playing this in a contest). You have to beeline the top part of the tree all game long, unless you want to or have to fight a little. And then once you get there it's about aligning the stars/sun/moon like in a CV. Not a fan if I'm honest. I like a good old fashioned breakdown-in-diplomacy smack-down.

 

[marekb]

Reference number: 29616
Your name: marekb
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1812AD
Turns played: 277
Base score: 1286
Final score: 2338
Time played: 4:59:00

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
I built 3 cities and played peacefully (except one phony war with Assyria because of miss-click).

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I went (quite late) for pantheon, get Desert Folklore and with Desert placement of two cities had a lot of faith. Two bought GSs allowed me to bulb Telecommunication a turn before 3rd WC and win 11 or 12 turns later. I also bought two GE to rush wonder and fulfil CS quests. I used spied for counter intelligence and to rig CSs' elections.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Very well. I got DoF with almost all civs.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Not much, except I had quite few military units.

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?The overall game was very similar to those with G&K, except for timing an Information era not to wait to long for World Leader Congress.

I feel at the beginning I played suboptimal. Capital had low food at the beginning. Later CS and trade routes compare that, but the start was slow. Moreover, I forget about switching citizens from working hills when building Settler to grassland and my capital lost 1 pop. Probably the best capital location was tommynt's one. I also should found Fes next to a mountain but I hoped for Petra which I missed by some turns.

 

[Owean]

Hadn't played a gotm in a while so did this one, got t293 diplo win. easy enough game, kind of a drag since my science was slow. Shoulda expanded faster before Brazil took city spots and placed cities better. Also wasted Oxford, thought I'd need globalization.

Spoiler :

 

[Half Nelson]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1820AD
Turns played: 281
Base score: 1362
Final score: 2432

I went 4-city Tradition but ended up with an extra city when Brazil settled far too close to my Southern border:- captured this city with an overwhelming force of 2 archers and 2 warriors??!! All went well and became friends with most AI (even Brazil) as game progressed. Reached Info Age at turn 252 (ish) to find that I had to wait over 20 turns for World Leader vote:- seems from reading other posts that good timing is required at this stage to get a quick vote but I just barged up the Tech Tree as quickly as possible. At this point I made DoW to Assyria after buying up the CS, just to put him in place (he was warmongering the rest of the map). Looking back, I could have bulbed into Info Age 3-4 turns earlier by speeding up a Faith GS, but not sure how this would have influenced the World Congress voting cycle.

My SP after Tradition were Consulates , full Rationalism then Order. I took Desert Folklore as Pantheon so had reasonable amounts of Faith to buy GS (and a GE) at endgame.

An interesting map with lots of choices regarding city placement. I was reasonably happy with my placement except for Casablanca (N at Lake Victoria), which I dimly placed on coat N of the ice so was effectively landlocked until Astronomy. In hindsight, going for more Observatory cities would have been better, but I wanted to try out the desert attributes. Morocco seems strong, the UA and UI are excellent. I never used the UU until they had been upgraded to armour and then it was on the attack over non-desert tiles!

 

[CyberBocal]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-07
Reference number: 29645
Your name: CyberBocal
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1960AD
Turns played: 381
Base score: 1277
Final score: 1680

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
I built 4 cities and acquired none.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I chose Goddess of Festivals. Papal Primacy helped getting alliances with CS. At the end of the game, I used many diplomats to make other civs vote for resolutions instead of me, to avoid getting diplomacy penalty for unpopular resolutions.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
I was friend with everyone, except Casimir. Loads of money allowed me to answer every demand, thus keeping good relations, and to sign many RA.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I guessed a peacefull game was possible at king difficulty.

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?
Spies were mainly used as diplomats, instead of influencing CS.

 

[Suliz]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-08
Reference number: 29650
Your name: Suliz
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1959AD
Turns played: 380
Base score: 1375
Final score: 1833
Time played: 6:37:00
Submitted save: Ahmad al-Mansur_0380 end AD-1960.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Suliz_C506701.Civ5Save

Well, I won. Almost the slowest of anyone who has submitted, but I won. I had submitted a few GOTM back after G&K came out, but then the patch from hell came last fall and suddenly I couldn't play my GMR games, I couldn't play GOTM or Hall of Fame... anyway, I stopped playing entirely. In the last 10 months or so, I have only played one other game than this one.

Has no idea how the cultural victory/works of arts system worked, and for the most part ignored it.



- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?

I went liberty, intending to build a decent number, but after four I ran out of productive places to build them for a long time. Eventually I added a fifth on a one hex island just off the coast of Persia and a sixth in middle of the ocean. Didn't attack a city state in the entire game.

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

My religion was most successful part of my game. By the end, I had 3 times as many cities following my religion as all the others combined. Initially, it was a slow slog, fighting against the Maya's Catholicism. But once sailed to the west, I found Austria and Poland (who was by far the largest country in my game) entirely religion free and just waiting for my missionaries. Select Pagoda's as my benefit, as I was still under the illusion that I would have more cities than I ended up with.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

Brazil got a little antsy after I placed my second city in the desert, and a couple of countries complained about my missionaries/GP, but mostly the other CIV's liked me.
The only conflict I had was with Persia. At one point, I look and see Persia has proposed an embargo against me. Naturally, I denounced them for it, for which I took a reputation hit, since we were still on a friendship pledge (which is kind of dumb).
I was worried about problems this would cause me, but the next turn almost every other CIV denounced Persia as well. And soon after countries started DoW on Persia, then it was gone.
I had hardly built any military at all, but I had picked the democracy ideology, and 6 foreign legions (upgraded to Infantry), and managed to pick off the capital.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Not sure it did, it has been so long since I had played. I did forgo attempting some wonders, but that was more from failures in the game (lost Petra, grrr!)

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?

Since I had no idea what changes had been made, no I stuck what I remembered from before. Tech/cash, patronage tree and the turn before the vote, buy up as many city-states as possible. I was lucky, Persia was the other big cash hoarder, so it was good they got taken out.

 

[jessie23]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-08
Reference number: 29654
Your name: jessie23
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1982AD
Turns played: 403
Base score: 1855
Final score: 2318
Time played: 2:49:00


How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
I built 3. One by Lake Victoria and one by the mountains with double stone. I acquired four (all) cities from Brazil.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Globalization w/ diplomats helped push me over the edge on the first world leader vote. I managed to spread Catholicism fairly well and had enough faith to pop 4 GS once I finished Rationalism.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Everyone was really cranky after I killed Brazil which limited the RA's I could get. Having one Freedom ally was critical for making Freedom the world ideology.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I went for more wonders than I would have on a harder difficultly.

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?
It is all about the science and having cash all game. Never getting my trade routes crippled in a war helped.

 

[Arnold_T]

I obviously have a lot to (re)-learn about diplo wins! I guess I should have played some practice games. After reading some of the other posts I think I probably could have finished at least 20 to 30 turns faster. I think I had everything I needed when the second vote came around at t223, I just hadn't cashed in all my Great Scientists yet. I'm going to go back to a T210 save and see if I can play the end game better.

I went 4 city Tradition. I pissed off Darius, Pedro, and Pacal early by stealing their workers early. I think I took two off of Darius, but eventually he became one of my best friends (along with Ghandi). Pedro never forgave me though, probably because I lied to him about the troops on his border. That's a really persistent diplo hit isn't it? It never goes away. My military must have been pretty weak because eventually Pedro DoWed me, and marched on my capital with about 10 units, including Trebs and Crossbows. I might have been really frightened if it was a Human opponent, but the AI is still very incompetent. He never came close to even starting to damage my city, and then I built a Gatling Gun and started mowing down his Pikemen.
Pedro packed up and headed for the hills. At least the AI recognizes when it's time to retreat. He offered me a peace deal too, which I grabbed since I didn't really need to take any of his cities.

Fun game, thanks H.R!

 

[golem]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-09
Reference number: 29657
Your name: golem
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1898AD
Turns played: 320
Base score: 1213
Final score: 1925
Time played: 4:21:00

Nice peaceful game. I did three cities and focus on gold and science. Was too late with religion, what I wanted was already out. I did a lot of mistakes in policy too - I am too used to G&K.

 

[Hyperion529]

i finally found enough time to play civ again and finish this game. phew, only 3 days left to submit

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1700AD
Turns played: 251
Base score: 1248
Final score: 2496

stayed peaceful after my initial raid on brazil's workforce, focused on growth and science and bought tons of gold with gpt from my 4 friends (Persia, Assyria, India, Austria). allying all CS was a cakewalk.
looks like i got a rather fast win, although i don't think i have a full understanding of the diplo win mechanics. mostly i'm not really sure how the number of turns until world leader vote is determined after you hit the information era. it seems to me that the number was different every time i went for a diplomatic victory (twice before this game since BNW, both times accidentally on my way to a CV. i disable it now in most of my games). maybe it has to do with the turn the congress was founded? i will have to read up on that for my next diplo gotm

Spoiler :

 

[mad-bax]

Well it's such a long time since I started this game that it's really hard to remember what I did, but really happy that I managed to play out my second game to a finish.

I founded the first city on the cotton, and the next 3 beside mountains. I had four cities in total, though I wish I had built one more around T120.

I got religion and enhanced it. Desert Folklore, Pagodas and monasteries. I beelined the research techs and printing press in the middle somewhere. Spies were useful in filling some of the gaps early, but later they were just used as diplomats ready for globalisation. I outstripped the AI in tech really early (for me).

Diplomacy was very straightforward except for the Assyrians. They seemed to be playing Always War and declared on me around turns 115 and 165 - and were at war with someone the entire game. The first time I didn't see many units, but the second time I did and had to switch a lot of builds and spent around 1000g in upgrades. Assyria ended up with 11 cities including 4 city states.

I'm not sure what difficulty level this game was (King?? - not sure), either way, as a complete noob, I don't know enough to make assumptions about difficulty.

I nearly forgot to explore the whole map and hadn't met every CS when the first vote was called

I've not played a Diplomacy game on CiV before, and really didn't know what I was doing. I just knew from the pedia that I had to get to PP and then to the information era. In fact, when I got to the information era on T298 I was really pleased with myself and thought I was going to win on the inter turn. I would have been really happy with a T299 win. But as usual, my hopes were dashed on the rocks of despair and I had to wait another 25 turns for a vote, which I won easily.

Have to say, diplo is pretty lame in CiV compared to CIII (which I can play a little).

I really liked the map. Would vote to have ruins put back in. It's only the elite players that are trying to be better than everyone else that care about a bit of luck, and the ruins add some interest to the early game.

Anyway onwards and upwards...

 

[EDP]

My stats (oh my, I've never played an over 10 hour game before!):

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-12
Reference number: 29667
Your name: EDP
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1996AD
Turns played: 417
Base score: 1790
Final score: 2156
Time played: 10:44:00
Submitted save: Ahmad al-Mansur_0417 AD-1997.Civ5Save
Renamed file: EDP_C506701.Civ5Save

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
Built 3 cities, including capital. If there had been better spots near enough, it probably would have been 4 or 5 cities. I grabbed all of Pedro's cities, Assur and Nimrud and I was forced by a DoW to take Hong Kong as well. I puppeted Riga too for the rock of Gibraltar. I puppeted all cities, except for Rio de Janeiro to have a bit more control over that large city's production.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I used no religion at all, except for in the end, when another had spread to my cities. I could buy mosques and cathedrals and I grabbed mosques in my 4 cities first, then cathedrals. By then I had filled some policy trees, so I grabbed a great engineer and scientist.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Hard. They didn't like me at all, except for two of the early game big guys. This made luxury trade easier at first, but later on harder and the empire was very unhappy 50% of the time. Especially after the ideologies came into play. Other civs had different ideologies and I had no tourism (big mistake, will do better on that front next time), so my empire went really unhappy. Until I made Freedom (my ideology) the World Ideology through the World Congress.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Not at all. I'm not that experienced that I know how difficulty can be handled differently. I tried to get some wonders, but most did not complete on time. Therefore I grabbed Rio, which has built some good ones.

- Did the new Diplomacy Victory conditions change how you play a diplomacy game?
Yes. I allied all City States before the victory. I had 36 votes, only 32 were needed. Easy win there. Getting there was a question of getting to the Information Era ASAP (I went Satellites, as you only need 2 technologies from the Atomic Era to get through it). Basically, it was a Science game while making sure the City States got allied along the way. I'm happy Austria didn't annex any City State using their special ability. This could have turned the game even more military than it already got.

 

[Arilian]

273 diplo win, not submitting.

I have near the left mountain as a wanted science, and tried liberty 6 city when seen I have space and more mountains. I asked perdro to not settle near me and it worked.

I did not really understand diplo win yet, a slow start 6c liberty is not really good for it, as you get PP late.

At the end (t253) I had 1500+science, and I was pretty mutch winner, bu had to click 17 turn more when I got the vote finally at t253. I however did not pay attention, and was short by 1 vote. (Would be able to get it easily, had money, diplomats, good relations, etc)
So I would need to wait 20 more! turn. I just quit so I did not really had a win, therefore the no submit.

I got Telecomm around T235, and the first wote was only at t253, I do not like this Actually I do not like any of the new VCs, only Science. The rest does not require enough science to have a longer endgame.

 

[stainless_steel]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 67
Date submitted: 2013-09-14
Ref number: 29681
Your name: stainless_steel
Game Status: Diplomacy Victory
Game Date: 1978 AD
Turns Played: 399
Base Score: 972
Final Score: 1230
Time Played: 4:03:00
Submitted Save: TSG67_0399 AD-1979.Civ5Save
Renamed file: stainless_steel_C506701.Civ5Save

Started playing BNW upon it's release in July. Played Civ4 regularly about 4-5 years ago. Used to submit some of those games to GOTM. Thought I'd give BNW GOTM a try.

Enjoyed the TSG67, but I need to learn how to maximize my score. I wasn't focused on that, just focused on securing the win. I usually play at Prince level, so this was a higher level for me; but Diplo is my prefered victory, so I felt comfortable in this game.

Looking forward to future GOTMs

 

[stainless_steel]

Also, just a quick question: is there a place where we can see the Global Civ5 GOTM rankings. They had something for Civ4 GOTM monthly rankings, but I can't seem to find anything for Civ5. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place?

 

[leif erikson]

No, that has not been created for Civ5 yet for any number of reasons.

However, TyphoonTurk has been keeping track of rankings and you can find them here and here.

to TyphonTurk for making the effort.