TSG9 After Action Report

[MrWhite]

My lowest score ever!

This game worked pretty well for me as well. All pieces game together as I was hoping. Only let-down is the far from optimal AI play. Even while I was (far) superior techwise, my army was almost non-existing. So in stead of letting me in peace, one of them should have been attacking me somewhere around turn 125 or so.
I would never have managed the win so easily then, even if I would eventually have been able to get the upper hand in such a war.

Then the second point: I was never outbid on a CS! I did my best to get some money in for the end (had between 1.500 and 2.000 left in the end), but Khan had over 3.000 and also some others could have bribed some from me. Alex fortunately had spend his money in the war he had going. But before that he also had over 2.000 to spend.
It made sure I could manage the diplo victory too easy. It should have been a lot more difficult!

I'm not sure if my start was optimal enough. For the first time I decided to build the NC before a second city. This meant the social policy settler had to wait for over 10 turns to settle. Luckily I was still able to settle the sweet spot south of Delhi. Later I build a third city at the coast west of Delhi. Only in the end I build a fourth city south of Delhi and east of Mumbai to get extra coal for my empire. This helped me because I was able to sell this coal to get enough RA's going. Through carefull planning I got the techs I desired. But I was not planning enough to get the RA's in blocks. This probably means I could have shaved some turns off.
Also I believe my gold acquiring should have been better (quicker).

Most alliances with city states I made in the end, to keep a friendly basis with all AI. It was late until I met Japan and Suleiman (around turn 110 I guess) and Alex around turn 160. But all leaders were trading, even if sometimes I had to sweeten the deal a bit (with resources or resources and then getting a bit of extra cash as spare).
I believe that choosing for war would have slowed me down. But it also meant that I had no extra cities generating cash or science. So I might be mistaken.

Still I see turn 224 is a pretty good win!

 

[alexdodo]

Date: 1860 AD, Score: 1471, Victory: Diplomatic

My first ever GOTM, really enjoyed that and played it straight through in one go.

Tried to stay with just the one city after a NC start, but the pesky Greeks settled just north of Delhi so I had to take them out, and puppet the city. The first 3 CS that I met were all maritime so I used them to get Delhi to a very large size fast, while making Delhi as good as possible for bringing gold in for which to bribe the CS.

In the end, after a war with Japan I had 3 puppet cities, just contributing to the science and gold. The Ottomans had a huge army on my border, so I managed to bribe them for just 300 gold to go to war with Persian instead of me - which was a relief as I think Persia would have attacked soon.

I wasn't sure how many CS I would need for the Diplo win, but after bribing as many as possible (without challenge) I scraped in first time with just enough votes. Ironically Ghengis was my friend all the way through, and he had shedloads of cash just sitting there which was never used to try and take CS away from me.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah...read some posts about how to win by diplo recently.

1-build UN
2-ally at least 9 city states

These were my notes.

Spoiler :

Persia destroyed both Mongolia and Siam. I built 6 cities then NC(finished it around 400 BC) and never got at war excepted a worker steal from Siam at turn 20. Made peace 15 turns later. Persia was my best friend and i had good relationship with every civ. I effectively built the UN turn 227 and accumulated gold (around 6000) and at 1 turn from vote i spent all the money in 9 cs. Persia finally got 10 votes and i got only 6. 2 RAs gave me sailing(was teching theology to get education from it but i missed by 5 beakers to finish the tech ) and another cheap tech. But i signed RAs more than ever and i'm still getting better to block techs.

Policies : Tradition(LE)--->Piety(theocracy)--->Liberty(meritocracy for ge couple of turns before UN)

Wonders : Oracle, Haga Sophia

Well i learned something. Not let a runaway civ getting high population and gold before UN vote! He had almost 2000 score points after all. It was still fun though excepted last 30 turns where i only clicked end turn until the end with a bit of micro to pop 4 techs at once to get Globalization.

Edit : I should had go to war before vote to lock cs allies...just read that somewhere....and suck money from Persia with ressources. If i play another diplo game, i will check that also.

It was my first try at a diplo win since i play civilization games. It was also the first time at all that i didn't kill a single foreign unit. Obviously it's not my cup of tea

Losing to an AI at Emperor in the 1500's(or early 1600's?)...sad but true.

Edit : Should i post a save? If yes it will be an autosave replayed from turn 235 to turn 237.

Edit(again) : Slugster's game suggest a very interesting policy path. The 2 free techs combined with accumulated gs and Oxford is probably the way to go to teleport yourself to Globalisation.

 

[leif erikson]

There is no need to attach the save as long as you submitted it through the submission system linked in the first post of the thread.

 

[Tabarnak]

There is no need to attach the save as long as you submitted it through the submission system linked in the first post of the thread.

Ok wasn't sure for games lost.

 

[leif erikson]

Ok wasn't sure for games lost.

Yes, you can submit a loss and I encourage you to do so. The submission system asks you "When did you save this file" and there is a drop down box that you select from. Just select "The turn when I was conquered"

Sorry if I misunderstood earlier.

 

[slugster]

@Tabarnak: Yes, I kind of teleported through Modern Age:

Biology + SteamPower: from 2-Free-Tech Policy (Scientific Revolution)
Electricity: 7 turns later from RA (used the turns to block other tech paths)
Refrigeration, Plastics, Penicillin, Ecology: from 4 GS accumulated up all through the game
Globalization: Oxford University (pre-build, then finalized on the same turn as I used the GS's)

I did miss out on a RA (got Metallurgy unwanted) and I guess it is possible to further optimize GS production and overall beaker production, so I think it is possible to shave of maybe 10-20 turns (maybe even more, some players are really good!)

 

[TyfoonTurk]

Built only 2 cities.

Tried to stay far from warmongering.

Ramkakakokikakie was allied with a lot of states and at war with me, which made it impossible for me to ally any state.

Then I bribed Otto to DoW on him, and decided to save up all my money, untill ram proposed peace to me.

I collected all my GS and bulbed them at the end to get to the UN, which I waited with building untill Ramk was out of the way.

So thank you Otto.

 

[Tabarnak]

@Tabarnak: Yes, I kind of teleported through Modern Age:

Biology + SteamPower: from 2-Free-Tech Policy (Scientific Revolution)
Electricity: 7 turns later from RA (used the turns to block other tech paths)
Refrigeration, Plastics, Penicillin, Ecology: from 4 GS accumulated up all through the game
Globalization: Oxford University (pre-build, then finalized on the same turn as I used the GS's)

I did miss out on a RA (got Metallurgy unwanted) and I guess it is possible to further optimize GS production and overall beaker production, so I think it is possible to shave of maybe 10-20 turns (maybe even more, some players are really good!)

I researched Biology,Steam Power and Electricity by myself. I popped other techs from Oxford and many gs. That's a big difference in term of turns researched(approx 7-8 turns from each tech). With early successful RAs combined with early high research output, very good players can do very early finish dates.

 

[Farrapo]

I decided to build four additional cities despite the fact that the Indians get penalized for number of cities. I did not attack anyone, concentrated on growing cities, advancing science, and also a fair amount of cultural advance. I did not choose the SPs very optimally, kind of bounced around. I kept a pretty minimal military and made lots of resource sales and trades. I did a fair number of RAs but I refuse to use the blocking strategy as that feels like an exploit to me (no offense to anyone who uses it).

Spoiler :

My first picks were:

Research: AH, Wheel, Pottery, Calendar, Writing, Archery, Mining
S.P.: Tradition, Liberty, Collective Rule, Citizenship, Legalism
Delhi: Monument, Scout, Worker, Warrior, (War Elephant - bought), Settler

Eventually Siam attacked me and I had to upgrade and build units. I took a couple of cities and found five Wonders in his capital. Wish I'd thought of that earlier as this was after turn 200. I made peace, later fought again and took some more cities.

For a number of turns I have the cities all focused on science and special people, the switched to gold to buy allies.

After I built the U.N. it took 12 turns for a vote to be called, which I thought was excessive. During that time the Mongols (who were a huge powerhouse in my game) attacked me and I had to defend.

The game was won on turn 293 but I executed the save on turn 294 after extending a turn.

Not a sterling result, but I enjoyed trying out many new things. Oh, and absolutely no restarts or backtracks, just did it in pieces over a few days. No looks at any other results prior either.

I see someone did it in 199 turns and that impresses me!

 

[drlucifer]

Initial build order in Delhi was Scout/Worker/Stonehenge/GL/Oracle. A GE from Meritocracy got me the GL. I met Siam on turn 11 and shortly after decided he was going to need to go as I’ve seen Siam go very heavy Diplo in past games. I declared on turn 89 (after my Wonders) and eliminated him on turn 104 with 3 Pikemen and 2 War Elephants. He had two cities which I eventually annexed.

I built one city just before the war at the northern bank of the river to the SW of Delhi, one post-war city SW of the Grand Mesa, and then a couple more midgame cities near the capital. That was more cities than was necessary but I figured I’d need the gold (especially after I found Alex and discovered he was raking in gold and aggressively allying with CSs).

I bribed Genghis into declaring on Greece a couple times, but not much came out of it. Greece declared war on me sometime around turn 240, which was a horrible idea for them as they couldn’t steal my CSs and did nothing more than sink a fishing boat. Persia also declared a couple times and got nothing; the Ottomans declared towards the end and so I puppeted a city of theirs. Genghis took over most of China and Persia and as the game ended Obu was crushing the Ottomans. I was generating 342 gpt around the end of the game with my cities on gold focus, which was more than any other Civ, and I also had more in the bank.

 

[Tom Joad]

My second GoTM

It was a pretty peaceful game except for when I took Siam's capital just to get on Mongolia's good side. It seemed to work because nobody else bothered me for the rest of the game except Greece but I just paid Mongolia to attack them and so they left me alone in the end.

After that it was all about rushing for the UN.

 

[Firvulag]

So I sent my warrior out and quickly found that I was 4-5 hex from coast in 3 directions and thought that a couple of coastal cities would be nice if I get around to it. (I didn't. didn't end up building any more cities)

Build order was scout scout granary. Experimenting with not building the monument immediately to get the NC quicker (hopefully).
research order pottery - writing - mining - philosophy.

Had no luck from the few ruins I found, getting barbarian locations and mapping that showed nothing useful. I eventually got some gold and 1 with a population.

I found that Siam was close by and figured they'd be my likely opponent. I tried not to antagonize him and got to Friendly even with him before he eventually decided to DoW me (just after I sold him stuff which I thought was great timing) Even better when I didn't see a single unit of his for about 40 turns (and only cos I went looking for him!)

SP order of Tradition - Liberty - Citizenship - Meritocracy - Freedom (T95 from Oracle!) - Constitution (Never had Freedom so early!

By T102 I had those, had signed 5 RAs and 4 had matured with another only just signed. They'd started demanding I throw in an extra 100 for them now too!

I had remained peaceful with all asides from Siam (who I still hadn't seen since his DoW!) I'd taken money from Persia and given it to the Mongols so they could declare war on him and was regularly selling the cotton and wine for 300 or close to it. Everyone I'd met (Except Siam, still hadn't found Greece) was Friendly, and most were paying 50 for OB regularly.

The NC was up (T62, and 1 Academy built real early from the Meritocracy GP). I thought things were going great asides from Siam being odd.

I had to divert when I found him and saw his troops included his elephant things.

So I kept signing RAs and made a push along the military line to get to musketmen. By the time I went and parked one next to one of his cities, I was actually ahead in military tech since he had swords and archers to back up his elephants. I fortified on the hill+forest next to his city and he just bombarded it each turn. upgraded it with shock 1+2 and walked a GG and the newly acquired cannon down. After taking 2 cities from him, he threw almost 2k at me for peace, which I accepted. War was not my plan and I shifted back to the original goal, with a couple of Allies in pocket too. I think this was my first real big error, as I should have used the coin to buy some buildings I needed.

By the mid-point of the game, my tech control had fallen apart and a couple of RAs missed their intended targets, but I was still loved by most of the AI. Mongols were BFFs for the entire game, and a great trade partner, along with Sully. At one point late in the game I traded 6 resources to them and got 1800g back! was awesome.

In the end, I had a GE produce just before I was going to get Globalization, so building the UN was 4 turns, and by this stage I had 9 allies already. Turns out I needed them as the Greeks were the main Diplomatic contender with 7 votes. And I'd been fighting him for about 3 of my allies for quite a while.

As with others, Mongols and Ottomans were the military power, and I kept them on the best of terms, even though early on I was hoping to get Japan to go to war with Sully, I ended up getting Sully to go against Japan. about 5 turns before the win, the world erupted with Mongolia playing the part of the defensive nation as everyone asides from myself and Siam went to war with him. Planes and missiles flying everywhere, and even though Ottomans and Mongols had Manhatten built, I didn't see any Nukes, but it could have been in the vast areas that I couldn't see. I never really found Alex, he found me.

I greatly enjoyed the game, and will have to squeeze the GOTM into my gaming. Lots of fun

 

[Maxym]

Very straight forward game, but reading some of the writeups it can get very messy depending on the choices made.

I have joined an early Genghis war on Darius with my one and only military unit (spearman) hoping to sneak in and take a city Genghis has pounded into near submission, but it was not to be. He never broke through to do any damage, and after stealing a worker and the losing it same turn, i took first offer of peace from Darius.

Mongols, China and Japan stayed friendly throughout the game and I sold them what I could which wasnt as much as i was hoping for. Settled 2nd city very early for me, b4 NC on the juicy spot on the river to the south. Pissed Siam off and I knew he was my next and I thought only target.

I had an RA with him, and I was militarizing slowly 2 SM and 1 in production, ready to upgrade to LSM, when 3 turns before getting a tech he Dows me. Three turns earlier Genghis Dowed him, so I was hoping for an easy war. He never shifted units from my border where he was preparing his attach in a shadows, so Mongols had an easy war and I had t slog through his units. I took his closest city (Susa) wiped out his troops and moved in to encircle his capital with 4 LSM and 1 Treb.

His two elephants just tore me apart, I took both out but was left with 1 LS and a treb. Fortunately I managed to pop Rifling and research chemistry. Moved my remnants back to upgrade, produced 2 more rifles and this time was able to withstand his elephant charges, took his capital and moved onto city to the easy of it which was a new cap. He sued for peace, gave me all his other cities 5 or 6 i think.

It plunged me into massive unhappy, so I sold some to Genghis who was sitting on a pile of cash all game long. Alex was fighting me as well but he never appeared and sued for peace when he was good and ready.

From that point on I was just teching and politely declining Genghis's offers to take out his next victims: Oda then Wu. He was wasn't a very successful on either front.
I have never complained that I could have shaved off 1- or 20 turns from the win, but this time I will. I had it all lined up with a GE waiting to build UN, 2 free tech from policy saved, a GS, and well blocked off research tree. And next 3!!! RAs gave me blocked off techs and forced me to make my own discoveries

In the end I bought every single cs and sailed to a late and unsatisfying win

 

[da_Vinci]

This game was messy in several ways.

1. For starters, the game says I got 10 votes, but I only count 8 CS and me voting for me. Do I get a bonus vote for having the UN? If not, then the machine can't count!

2. Moving too fast, I managed to have my GE outside the city pop a golden age instead of buiding Cristo. A very annoying misclick on turn 234.

3. Took three votes before I was able to keep enough votes in the UN ... Siam and Persia kept buying the CS back right as the votes approached, and my cash flow couldn't keep up.

I built 4 cities and never went to war. RA's (and reasearch blocking) kept me in good shape techwise. Signed OB with everyone pretty much at all times ... and everyone was friendly until Goliath Darius denounced me near the end (annoyed by my city state purchases?).

I settled in place, built two scouts, sent them seraching for gold to buy a worker (which I did). For policies I did tradition, then its wonder bonus, then went liberty, the free worker, the founded city policy cost reduction, the free settler. Honor in there somewhere to hold off the barbs. Then Rationalism to the two free techs, then patronage set.

For wonders, got Henge, Poppped Porcelain with first GE, had to slow build Cristo, and the UN.

Gold seemed harder to come by then ususal, probably the absence of puppets.

Last point: parser says I played 5 hours and six min. Autosaves indicate I played just under 7 hours. On the submission screen I saw some equation-like line about time and adding or subtracting from it ... not sure what is up with that.

Educational, frustrating, and fun all at once!

dV

 

[kcd_swede]

I've submitted the game a few days ago. It was on another computer, so I'm not sure if I report the victory date correctly or not. Have to wait till results get published, I guess.

But this game was murder. I took down Ramk to 1 city pretty early. I also allied with CS's earlier than necessary, probably earlier than optimal for a UN victory. I thought that the extra growth from maritimes was perfect for Ghandi, though. And as it turned out, I doubt I could have won this game had I not allied every city state as early as I could. The military CS Almaty was alligned by eliminating Ramk's CS Genoa for them, and and then with a road. 2 other CS's aligned with me for puppeting Genoa as well, which I maintained with cash gifts. I had the Patronage bonuses, of course, plus I was making about +400gpt at the end.

But it was murder because the game was almost constant war, even though I tried to make friends and be peaceful... did not eliminate any civs (except CS Genoa), though the Japs did eliminate Ramk eventually (and I wonder if I got negative diplo for that?). Anyhow... I had a good military tech lead, so the wars were not much problem for me. Every civ is at war with me (simultaneously for the most part) for most of the game after about 500AD. And that isn't enough... some of the civs I am at war with contact me... to declare war on me! With all the war, getting more CS's would be impossible. So it was good I had 12 votes secured early. My wars I fought defensively for the most part... puppeted a few cities that others had snuck in between my own cities, and a couple Jap cities just for fun. My defenses never had t ofight on my own territory because I was primarily defending allied CS's. I lost one on the Greek mainland, but got a destroyer there in time to save the other two one the island SW of Greece. These I had to outbid Greece for, so I understand Greece was going to hate me. I almost lost one in the far East to Otto, but harassed him enough from my stolen Jap cities to make him divert to Konya, which is the only city I lost the whole game. He was probably only a couple turns from taking one of the CS's over there when the vote came up and I had 11 votes and victory.

Most fighting done with Cavs and cannons... at the end had a few Inf.

RA's were pathetic... war does that. At times of peace I'd made RA's with Mongols twice or three times, only to have him DOW me with a few turns to go on them. I didn't RA-block, so I would have gotten crap tech anyhow. At the end I used two GSci's for the last two techs including Globalization. Then used GG's to stay in Golden age all through the 14 turns to build the UN while pushing back attacks on CS's. Then win. One more CS than necessary.

I really need some pointers in how to make friends and keep them. Perhaps it was simply that by bordering Japan and Mongols I was doomed to be at constant war with them. But I never got any help from anybody else, just grief... despite doing nothing bad to any of them. I denounced who they (Otto, Alex, Darius) denounced, I gave them lucrative trade deals. I fought in wars against common enemies. Nothing helps... they hate me anyhow. They want my land, they think I've expanded too much, they want my wonders, they think I'm trying to win the game.

Good thing they suck at war.

But if I could have kept peace up to Globalization, I'd have saved lots of turns not having to get military techs along the way. But if I'd just expanded peacefully, I think the victory would have been much slower, and I bet I'd have gotten into constant warring anyhow. Better to pre-empt and be ready for perpetual war. Takes long in real life time, though... so the number of games I can play is greatly reduced, and my ability to improve quickly is greatly inhibitted.

But its fun... so I look forward to the next one.

EDIT: after checking my submission confirmation e-mail, I can report my diplo victory date with more certainty now. 1832AD. No RA blocking (in fact, at most 1 RA ever matured to give a tech - theology).

 

[Half Nelson]

My First CiV game with Ghandi and my first real attempt at Diplo victory. My initial plan was to “go vertical” with 4 cities after an NC start. I got off to a flier with lots of RAs (Education BC) but Siam began to eat up territory to S of me and took my preferred 2nd city spot at the coastal river to SW. I ended up planting city 2 to SE for 3 cows / cotton:- it turned out to be a fine production city, but not great for cash. Cities 3 and 4 went on N and W coastal spots for fish-farming. Siam, Greece and Ottomans all developed substantial CS blocks whilst I was spending my way through RA so, although I was tech leader and the world’s best friend, I became concerned that my 4-city empire was not going to cut it financially with three large, rich and greedy competitors. I decided at that point to build up a military and take out Siam:- this was successful but possibly unnecessary and certainly cost me 20-30 turns. I reached Globalisation by about turn 265 and took a comfortable Diplo victory (14 votes) at first attempt, although I was involved in several rounds of hectic CS buyouts after completing the UN:- I cemented the win by DOW with Ottoman and draining the Greek coffers with superfluous trade agreements. I haven’t noticed this being a key factor in other game reports, but it certainly seemed that Suleiman and Alex were making a concerted effort to buy CS away from me as the UN vote approached.

A very interesting game, although I can’t say that I was overwhelmed by Ghandi’s CiV attributes. I did get big core cities by endgame but not early enough, my sole War Elephant was no more than a useful barb repellent and I only built a single Mughal fort at the death to investigate the gold bonus after flight (I never managed to work this out from the information available on-screen:- does anyone know how much you receive?). My land before the Siam conquest was short of luxuries and I didn’t use Social Policies very well, taking Patronage policies too early when I couldn’t afford to buy or keep CS allies. I also used a GE to rush Christo Redentor when I should have kept it for the UN.

 

[DaveMcW]

I was considering NC first, but when I saw the sweet cotton/gold site and an opportunity to screw over Siam, I went Settler first. Build order was Scout, (purchase worker), Settler, Worker, Library, National College.

Spoiler Turn 33 Screenshot :

Instead of buying the second worker like I normally do, I invested the money in a cultural city state. That gave me enough culture to unlock the first three Patronage policies when I hit Medieval on turn 68.

I used two research agreements to slingshot to Education on turn 77. The early universities, combined with pop growth from 5 maritime city states, powered my research to the mid-renaissance. I didn't sign any more RAs until the endgame.

My social policies were Tradition, Educated Elite, and Scientific Revolution. Educated Elite gave me 2 Khans and a Merchant.

After centuries of coveting my land and watching me buy up city states, Siam finally declared war on turn 103. I upgraded a warrior to stop his initial rush. Then I counterattacked with 1 longsword, 1 catapult, 1 scout, and 1 khan and took his capital.

Spoiler Turn 103 Screenshot :

I delayed entering the Renaissance as long as I could to keep research agreements cheap. I finally entered it on turn 129 after signing 5 new research agreements.

Spoiler Turn 128 Screenshot :

I spent the next 30 turns optimizing my endgame plans, and they all came together nicely.

- RAs gave Navigation, Archaeology, Scientific Theory, Military Science, and Biology.
- Oxford University gave Steam Power.
- 4 Great Scientists (including 1 from Porcelain Tower) gave Electricity, Refrigeration, Plastics, Penicillin.
- Scientific Revolution gave Ecology and Globalization.
- A Great Engineer dual popped at 300gpp with my third scientist. He rushed the United Nations.

Spoiler Turn 170 Screenshot :

 

[Tabarnak]

Completely forgot about policy saving option....gotta watch these options more attentively next time.

Good job Dave. You demonstrated how a player can REALLY teleport to globalization!

And -38 gpt at the end for the lulz.

 

[Ballcrusher]

Turn 243 diplomatic win

My first game in a couple of months, so I noticed there have been quite a bit of balancing patches. Haven't tried the diplomatic victory before in Civ V, so I lost a good deal of turns because of bad timing. But all in all a fun game.

Founded 3 cities my self and puppeted all 3 cities that Siam owned. Got DOW'ed by mongols one time, but it was ended after just one or two of their armies were killed. Most of the time the other CIV's were guarded towards me. Two CIV's (Greece and Ottoman) were military supperior to me in the end game, but they were the only ones neutral towards me and a few gifts kept them away.

Won in turn 243 with 18 out of 24 UN votes (my vote, my Siam-vote and 16 allied city states).

Ended last turn generating 675 science, 234 gold (had more than 5000 in bank), 28 happiness, 161 culture.