TSG71 After Actions

[Bezhukov]

I think he means IP, 30% further spread.

I think settling on fishes is superior not a trap, you can buy workboats while plowing all hammers into wonders. I rarely worked those third ring mines as I had all specialist slots assigned. Maybe after 35 pop they started being worked.

GL is essential to early science push, I can't see anyone getting decent Edu times without it. and there are no alternative sources on beakers, AIs are too backwards for ITRs to yield anything useful.

Stealing Shaka's worker is irrelevant, unless you can capture early settler, worker comes too late. Besides you don't need to slow him down, you want him to develop well as those cities will be your puppets soon. I just built my worker since it's prince.

Max is right on both counts. I meant 30% extra range (critical if you want to spread your religion around, but I missed Tithe, so it only hurt me in that the CSes I evangelized with Brodobur missionaries for greater influence (so I could take Exploration policies before Patronage) didn't stay bought and I couldn't keep the diplo bonus from common religion. If I had Tithe, it would also have hit the pocketbook, but the hammers that went to GL led to missing Tithe (as did Antwerp's gems not giving faith since puppeted cities don't get the auto pantheon).

Playing through second time, and building own worker is superior (though I also stole Shaka's - the two things that keep me from being an elite player = no feel for managing early wars, so I wanted to keep Shaka weak to avoid one, and lack of patience with the lightbulb rush late and plotting all that out).

There's basically nothing else (than worker) worthwhile to build yet in the first ten turns, although an argument could be made for getting a scout up for when you get optics, but he won't have much to do for the early turns, and those hammers are so valuable. Lots of trees to chop, and getting farms on those two plains is really big for getting early science going.

That's the thing about GL - you don't get your library up until its done, and in the race to optics (and a lighthouse), not to mention the worker techs needed to get things rolling smoothly, you can't wait that long.

You make up the beakers with the mad pop you get from that early cargo ship hauling an extra 7 food a turn into Venice combined with Tradition* growth bonuses and border pops. 60 turns into this second run and I've got 12 pop already working a couple third ring hills. You need Hanging Gardens to get a Gardens since you're not on a river and need the GP boost. Oh, also more food. 5 turn build.

I've still got two pearls and a fish up and working, but will be a total monster in the midgame. Antwerp is rocking and rolling with three mines, a horse, two fish, a lighthouse, and the equivalent of a Hanging Gardens of his own (trade route bringing food). Even the AI can't mess that up.

We'll see how it plays out.

* - had to have Trad for growth and border pops (you can't buy tiles for puppeted cities), not to mention the free Garden with Hanging Gardens, and wonder building boost. Free Amphitheater is so useless now, that I bit the bullet and waited for free monument. Had to buy a couple tiles to keep workers on task and still lagging a bit with policies.

 

[Smote]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 71
Date submitted: 2013-10-20 00:41:40
Reference number: 29912
Your name: Smote
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1655AD
Turns played: 242
Base score: 1741
Final score: 3627
Time played: 3:04:00
Submitted save: TSG71_Finish.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Smote_C507101.Civ5Save

Features:
Moved capital to maximize access to fish resources.
Popped sailing from the 2nd ruin (left of shaka). This allowed optics much earlier than normal, which sped up the capital's growth via an early lighthouse.
Stole shaka's settler
God of Sea pantheon + many fishing boats
Merchant of Venice to Zurich, rather than the one to the right. I liked his land better. He turned out to have irons, to upgrade the galeasses to frigates later also. Needed compass before I could use this city for a food cargo ship however.

I eliminated everyone except China. This means I only had to hit the Atomic Era, instead of the Information Era to get this message: "The World has entered the Atomic Era, either because half of the Civilizations have reached it, or one Civilization has reached the era beyond it."

World Ideology + World Religion + Ally all CS + Forbidden Palace for 38 votes

I'm not a Venice player, but I figured out a food cargo ship to a city will convince the city governor to use specialists instead of try to make food... This is critical for science late game, which is heavily dependent on specialists + rationalism. Normally I just annex, but Venice's puppets requires me to figure out the city governor..

Video: http://www.twitch.tv/ashtaar007/b/471749983

- How many City States did you acquire with Venice's ability and did you take any cities through combat or peace deals?
1 with Venice's ability, took 1 cs through combat, conquered every other non-Chinese non-CS city through combat.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
The -25% influence loss to CS sharing my religion is nice, also + gold from Tithe. I used Divine Inspiration (2 faith from wonders) and captured cities of a religion that could build Pagodas, which let me do both without waiting for an enhanced religion.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
I captured Zulu's settler, and basically got denounced by everybody all game, while I killed them one by one.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It made me not respect the AI's combat effectiveness at all, and send minimal forces at cities to conquer them efficiently. I would have played (slightly) more peacefully and focused on using momentary gaps if I had to deal with the navies of immortal or deity AIs. Prince let me just use galeasses/frigates all game. I believe Zulu's spy stole "masonry" from me around Turn 150... lol

- Did the the patch change how you play a diplomacy game or change how you treated the AI?
No

 

[tibbie]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 71
Date submitted: 2013-10-20 03:30:20
Reference number: 29913
Your name: tibbie
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1836AD
Turns played: 289
Base score: 1318
Final score: 2312
Time played: 7:24:00
Submitted save: Enrico Dandolo_0289 AD-1838.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tibbie_C507101.Civ5Save

- How many City States did you acquire with Venice's ability and did you take any cities through combat or peace deals?

I played very peacefully, so I just bought 3 CS (Antwerp, Brussels, Zurich). At first I was confused about the strategy as Venice, but my initial thought was - we need a strong capital, and puppets are prob. not very useful
Still, I aimed for 4 cities because for some reason this is what I always do when I pick Tradition!

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

Well, there was clearly no hurry whatsoever to found your own religion. Went for Tears of the God (+faith from Pearls and Gems), Papal Primacy (+ resting influence with CS) and then Divine Inspiration (+faith from wonders),
Religious Community (production) and Religious Unity (faster religion spread to CS). Since I had a good flow of faith I did spread religion to most CS, and also to Japan, China and Zulu which did not have own faith.
My "friend" Zulu decided to put up an early vote for world religion, so I did not even have to do it myself!

Had no spies or counterspies, but instead used these in relevant CS and then in the civs as I was thinking of bribing them to vote for me. However, I find that it is pretty much impossible to gain votes from other civs,
even the most friendly civ Portugal would never vote me as world leader (offered hundreds of GPT, but no).

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

Really nothing interesting, not even a surprise attack from Zulu :/ When I picked up a worker from Antwerp, I noticed the change in diplomacy penalty - the Zulu "had some early concerns" about my warmongering

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

I could build lots of wonders which I otherwise never would have got. Secondly I really didn't have to worry about defense of the cities.

- Did the the patch change how you play a diplomacy game or change how you treated the AI?

I don't think so, although I did notice some changes, e.g. that the AI is more actively offering or requesting the deals. Also the bonuses from cultural influence, which made me put a little focus on working the influence
(it was not hard tho, but just needed the usual systematic control of trade routes, open borders, religion spreading, theme bonuses etc).
Also, since I did have many votes (43 due to world religion, world ideology, Forbidden Palace, globalization), it was not so challenging to win DV, it was more about trying to get to the right era ASAP.. something that I reckon I was way too slow with!
I built 3 Academies and it seems quite a waste, perhaps 1 would have been enough.

 

[Rathmourn]

I eliminated everyone except China. This means I only had to hit the Atomic Era, instead of the Information Era to get this message: "The World has entered the Atomic Era, either because half of the Civilizations have reached it, or one Civilization has reached the era beyond it."

Man, I never even thought of this.

 

[WxDan]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 71
Date submitted: 2013-10-20 10:07:39
Reference number: 29919
Your name: WxDan
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1905AD
Turns played: 326
Base score: 1217
Final score: 1872
Time played: 4:28:00
Submitted save: Enrico Dandolo_0326 AD-1906.Civ5Save
Renamed file: WxDan_C507101.Civ5Save

- How many City States did you acquire with Venice's ability and did you take any cities through combat or peace deals? 2, Antwerp and Singapore.
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage? Minimal. Some city state rigging and diplomats at the end for the globalization votes. too far ahead to steal many techs.
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors? Largely uneventful. Stayed peaceful the enter game, despite the Zulu next door.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions? Didn't worry much about military, and a little extra wonder building.
- Did the the patch change how you play a diplomacy game or change how you treated the AI? The extra votes required pretty much necessitated Glabalization, but not a big effect. Other civs proposing deals for luxuries were nice.

 

[casualplayer]

Man, I never even thought of this.

I should have, because this was the game I was playing. Taking pity on Byzantium, Japan and China cost me centuries!

 

[Maxym]

Man, I never even thought of this.

Me neither, we'll see who else thinks of this.



So now we got sacred sites for low level CVs and multiple genocide for lower level diplo

 

[RedRover57]

I had a turn 202 domination victory. I find diplo victory to be too boring now even on Deity, particularly with Venice. Was hoping to break 200 but I messed around too much at the start with wonder building, etc. Once I had a navy and took out Shaka I had to do something with all of those frigates right? Why drag it out for another 50-100 turns? I just sailed east and conquered them in order - Byzantium, China, Indonesia, Japan/Portugal (at the same time), Morocco. Didn't bother to submit because of the (purposefully) wrong victory type.

The beginning was fun as I terrorized Shaka with one warrior and one scout. Stole a total of 3 workers and 2 settlers. Nice revenge for the times that he has attacked me with impis and knights around T70 on Deity.

I settled my capital on a north hill after seeing the other sea resources with my warrior. Eight improved sea resources with God of the Seas and seaports is quite crazy. In terms of wonders I built Great Library, Stonehenge, Great Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Chichen Itza, Leaning Tower, missed Hagia Sophia by one turn. With religion went Tithe, Divine Inspiration, % production belief, Itinerant Preachers. Policies were full Tradition and several in Exploration and Rationalism. Didn't make it to Industrial before winning.

This would have been a really interesting Deity map.

 

[Suliz]

Welcome to the TSG71 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.

Please use the Civ5 game submission page to submit your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.).

- How many City States did you acquire with Venice's ability and did you take any cities through combat or peace deals?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
- Did the the patch change how you play a diplomacy game or change how you treated the AI?

Game: Civ5 GOTM 71
Date submitted: 2013-10-20 18:51:58
Reference number: 29925
Your name: Suliz
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1892AD
Turns played: 317
Base score: 1166
Final score: 1850
Time played: 4:35:00

This was my first time playing as Venice. It was fun. By the end, I was pulling in nearly 500 GPT

Initially, there were some errors. Not thinking, I ended up using the GL tech for Drama and Poetry, just to maximize beakers and I probably took too long to grab Collosus (though I did get it).

I didn't build a single faith generating structure (I did buy a couple with ironically, faith though). I was trying to get the other Venice achievement, so didn't want a religion of my own. I planted 2 GP until finally one of my puppets got a religion and I could buy GE with faith.

I also pretty much ignored culture/tourism. I did send out two archeologists to excavate Zulu ruins from cities I had razed, but that was mostly guilt talking.

SP: Tradition, Patronage, Rationalism, Autocracy.

I MoV three CS, plus I puppeted Shaka's capital.

By turn 210 or so, all the CS were mine and the game was simply a question of how long it would take me to generate a UN vote (I suppose on Prince, you could argue that is all the game ever was). I am guessing I could have saved some turns, but I got distracted by trying to pick up the alternate Venice achievement. Unfortunately, no one would cooperate and convert Venice to their religion, so I failed in that respect.

No one DoW on me the whole game, though I think the Zulu were thinking about it for awhile. My relationships were deteriorating towards the end, due to my ongoing control of all the CS plus all the unfortunate atrocities I committed against Shaka.

The low difficulty level meant I could leave Auto-turn on without worry, so my playing time came in at a quick (for me) 4:35.

It was a fun game, I will have to give Venice another go. I may even retry this one, just to see how fast I could do it.

 

[dthompson32]

Heh, I just tried out elimination of all the civs except China. It is a lot more fun way to play it, IMO. Got a DV on turn 275, but my timing was very suboptimal.

Venice Great Galleas are devastating, I took 3 civs with just 4 of them and a trireme. It was just me and China by turn 200. I kept thinking I needed to get Research Labs, which was not true, I could have used GSes and free techs earlier to get to Penicillin and trigger the United Nations. I ended up with 2 unused GSes. When it did come up, I had 23 turns to wait for the vote. I also kept putting off PP, but I think it needs to be researched earlier. Need at a minimum a vote for World Religion and World Ideology, and Science Funding is very helpful, but maybe not needed.

I'll give it another try, I have some ideas for more optimal play.

 

[FeiLing]

I eliminated everyone except China. This means I only had to hit the Atomic Era, instead of the Information Era to get this message: "The World has entered the Atomic Era, either because half of the Civilizations have reached it, or one Civilization has reached the era beyond it."

I'm pretty sure that is going to be agreed upon very soon to be the way to go for DV.

So Domination, Culture and Diplo all are basically Domination. Only Science was fixed with BNW, as you want strong enemies to steal from and have RAs with and also you must not have more than 4-6 cities all game long (for any victory) for most parts of the game due to the tech cost increase per extra city.

Anyway:
Turns played: 274

Moved the warrior to the top left hill, so I didn't see the two fish to the NE. However I probably still wouldn't have settled in their range as I think I'd rather prefer the wheat in the first ring.

Even though there were so many pearls to work and also some nearby gems I'd get later I decided for the Fishing Boat Pantheon. The faith from hooking all Pearls just comes way too late.

Free MoV used to get influence/gold (what would a size 4-5 city be good for anyway? Also I really needed the gold at that point for... dunno, but I've made good use of it for sure (800g in the early game, yeah!)).

Rushed for Printing Press. Oxford for Radio (is this even the right move? I thought that was the goal but then noticed I actually have to get to Information Era to win this ).

Used Order, started with the Factory Tenet and Iron curtain for super caravans (like 6x16 food to venice at the end (size 45)), but also got the Free Engineer and Scientist and the ability to rush Spaceship parts with a GE from a secondary lvl3 tenet

I'm 100% convinced killing everyone is the only way to reduce the finish time apart from the correct timing (which is more or less luck dependent?). Not looking forward to future Diplo Victories therefore :-/

 

[DrZ]

Turn 257 Diplomaic Victory

Cities:
4 cities: Venice, 2 CS (Zurich and the one on the East of Venice), Zulu capital
(Waged war with 1scout archer, 1 scout, initial warrior and a catapult around turn 60... prince is weak as hell, even shaka)

SP:
Full tradition, 1 in commerce for more money, 4 in rationalism until secularism and boosted universities, <<ideology here>>, 3 patronage to get science from CS, finished rationalism, finish patronage

Ideology:
Freedom: I concentrated a lot on food and because Venice and the puppets had a lot of population and not many good tiles to work (expected that on an archipelago map) I had all specialists slots filled in all cities. Freedom boosts specialists so there you go.
Also venice has a huge amount of trade routes so getting influence on CS from trade routes is awesome also.

Main strategy: go for a science heavy game and a lot of population.

Religion: Tears of the gods, Tithe, Itinerant Preachers, Faith from World wonders, Religious Community. -> This helped in 2 ways: 1. Had a lot of faith generated and was able to buy 4 GS and 2. Converted Maria, Japan and Zulu to my religion so i had friends all game and Research Agreements. Also they voted for World religion nice and early.

World Congress:
1. world fair-> wanted to finish freedom and rationalism asap, helped a lot.
2. world religion -> for more votes
3. world ideology -> for more votes 10 turns after this was world leader win vote

The trick for faster finish is to enter the Information Age just before a few turns from the next vote. The world will enter the last era, and the world leader vote will be always be triggered 10 turns after the next vote so if the next vote is as close as possible then you wait fewer turns -> faster victory.

OBS: No barbs made allying CS early a pain. I always aim to get those barb quests. It might have been a faster game with barbs!

Question: I micro managed in Venice so i will get a Great Scientist the same turn with a Great Merchant. Both were going to be over 100 the same turn. The great scientist was the only one popped up!!! I had 102 great merchant points that turn so it should have popped. In other games i managed to pop 2 GP in the same 'category' the same turn but why not this time? did they changed this? Maybe the Great Scientist is always taken into consideration before GE and GM?

Any advice would be really nice.

 

[Monthar]

I don't recall if it was BWN release or one of the patches that made the change, but you can't pop multiple great people on the same turn anymore. You'll get the one with the highest total or has the most points per turn put into it, I'm not sure which.

That's an amazingly fast win for a mostly peaceful game.

My 6th attempt I managed a turn 259 victory by taking out all but China. I wa raising most of the cities until I got down to the last 2 civs, because their cities would have taken too long to raze and I didn't want to wait for one to finish razing before moving on to the next one.

 

[casualplayer]

On a replay I discovered that it rounds up on the "World has reached the Atomic Era" so you and two other Civs can still be alive and kicking when you hit The Information Age.

Learning that Puppets will staff their specialists if you send a Cargo Ship is a great tip. Thanks, Smote. There must be a food threshold though because I had to send two Cargo Ships to Jakarta before it would staff all the spots.

Iron Curtain is insane with Venice. +126 Food in my cap! On my first playthrough I did have a 52 pop cap at the end but I think I'm going to smoke that on the replay.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I don't recall if it was BWN release or one of the patches that made the change, but you can't pop multiple great people on the same turn anymore. You'll get the one with the highest total or has the most points per turn put into it, I'm not sure which.

Now that there are two categories of GP--artist/writer/musician and GE/GS/GM (and GAdm/GGen too but not so much for this point)--that now use different points counters, I'd assume you could spawn, say, a Scientist and a Musician at the same time. I havent tried this myself but I'm curious if anyone can confirm this.

And if I recall, it used to be that you could also only pop 2 diff great people in the same city but still couldnt pop two great people in two different cities at the same time. (I personally remember not being able to time 3 GSs in 3 cities at the same time, haha. I think it was pre-GnK too.) I am also not sure in which patch/expansion they ended that though. There have been enough iterations of rules that I'm losing track of the particulars.

 

[Half Nelson]

Diplomacy Victory
Turns played 290
Base score:1303
Final score: 2285

First time with Venice. I played this using the new patch. A couple of general observations:-
1. I had a freeze-frame crash at end of turn 29. I loaded the autosave from that turn (during which very little happened) and game played OK after that. I have submitted but will accept your ruling on admission.
2. I still struggle with the DV timeline and had to wait 20 turns after reaching Info era before reaching the World Leader vote
3. I had all City-State votes (bar two I had puppeted), Globalization and UN chair bonuses (although not Forbidden Palace) but still only won the DV by a single vote (39 votes required IIRC). This seems a much stiffer test than before.

I settled on hill to S and grew Venice as fast as possible using Tradition bonuses and cargo ships. I puppeted two Zulu cities and bought two CS with MoV (Antwerp and Zurich). I completed Tradition, Patronage and Rationalism trees and reached Level 3 Order. I used the Pearls Faith pantheon but used religion largely for GE and GS purchase.

Overall Venice is an interesting civ to play. The most frustrating element is not being able to allocate Specialists in Venice puppets. This was a particular problem with Antwerp, which had lots of usable tiles. I did send food ships to puppets but not all used Specialist slots.

 

[Monthar]

Now that there are two categories of GP--artist/writer/musician and GE/GS/GM (and GAdm/GGen too but not so much for this point)--that now use different points counters, I'd assume you could spawn, say, a Scientist and a Musician at the same time. I havent tried this myself but I'm curious if anyone can confirm this.

And if I recall, it used to be that you could also only pop 2 diff great people in the same city but still couldnt pop two great people in two different cities at the same time. (I personally remember not being able to time 3 GSs in 3 cities at the same time, haha. I think it was pre-GnK too.) I am also not sure in which patch/expansion they ended that though. There have been enough iterations of rules that I'm losing track of the particulars.

Yes you can pop an artists, musician, writer, prophet and one of the three remaining originals all on the same turn because they are all on their own counter. You can't pop two of the originals on the same turn because their counters are tied together.

Yes at one point you could get the original artist, engineer, scientist and merchant to all pop on the same turn in the same city if you timed it correctly. However, that meant you were getting 3 of them a lot cheaper. The counter would increase properly for the next one after the multipop, but it was a very broken mechanic. I'm glad they finally fixed this.

 

[Muaziz]

(Short write-up since I am still traveling.)

The one thing I did very well this game was completely neuter Shaka. I stole two Workers before t30. And within the first 60 turns, I had taken 4 or 5 Workers and 2 Settlers (I ended up deleting all of them after the first 2).

When my first Merchant of Venice popped, I actually used him to scout a bit before annexing Antwerp. Annexing earlier seemed of little value and I preferred to keep selling Luxes to AIs rather than keep them to keep Happiness up.

I didn't capture Ulundi until t147 since I was too busy building Wonders up until then. But when I finally did attack, the Zulu capitol fell fast against 2 Trebs, 1 XBow, 2 Great Galleases, and a Pike. I could also have crushed Shaka's two other puny cities (that took him forever to settle given what I did to him early game), but I made peace rather than incur more Diplo penalties with the other AIs. Besides, I knew Shaka would never again be a threat with two size-3 cities.

One small mistake I made was going Freedom rather than Order thinking that it was better for a Diplo VC. The truth is that the Diplo VC really requires a lot of science so you are probably better off with Order's Factory science bonus. Not sure that it mattered much in my game since I still hit a pretty tight 3 turn timing window on the World Congress votes.

I probably should have popped a few GSs earlier for a faster finish, but I still have a really hard time planning exactly how many I will need for the final late game push.

 

[DrZ]

Yes you can pop an artists, musician, writer, prophet and one of the three remaining originals all on the same turn because they are all on their own counter. You can't pop two of the originals on the same turn because their counters are tied together.

Yes at one point you could get the original artist, engineer, scientist and merchant to all pop on the same turn in the same city if you timed it correctly. However, that meant you were getting 3 of them a lot cheaper. The counter would increase properly for the next one after the multipop, but it was a very broken mechanic. I'm glad they finally fixed this.

Ok, thanks for shedding some light in this. I don't actually consider it an exploit. Its not that easy to do, and if you invest some time in micromanaging you should be rewarded for it. I wish they had more of this kind of things not less.
Any way, so what happens if you get exactly 100 points on each a scientist, a merchant and an engineer that turn? In any case thanks for the answer.

 

[caeru71]

Your name: caeru71
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1914AD
Turns played: 335
Base score: 1585
Final score: 2401

Thanks for the game.