Civ 5: GMR in the Playground 11: Settlers RULE!

[The_Snark]

Spoiler: Celts

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We wish you luck, but our forces won't be in a position to so much as inconvenience Greece for several turns yet, and we'd prefer to keep some element of surprise if/when we launch our own attack.

Our woefully outdated scouts would like to offer you the following intelligence:

It might be wiser to wait until we can all strike at once.

(EDIT: content added)

[Illven]

Spoiler: The snark;Russia

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I did not catch the edit.

Welp. I'm boned!

In other news. Sent you a trade deal including every spare luxury you have. Since I'm at -12.... Let's say any help you can give is appreciated.

Spoiler: Ryuho Tsugu;Dutch

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I am at -12 Unhappiness, any luxuries you can share are worth their weight in gold.

It is with the greatest regret. (Because we are boned.) That the Celticish state feels it must declare war on the Greek state.

There are things man kind was not meant to know. And space is one of them.

War update to come shortly.

Spoiler: Spectator war update

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And right before war. Lux trades end. The Celtic prophets hope that this isn't foreshadowing.




But this may be a ray of hope. A great scientist has been born to our people.




They perfect the technology of Replaceable parts, and start to work on mass manufacturing of plastics.




Welp. We're boned.



Super boned.



Russia give us luxuries so we don't have to deal with Barbarians.








The initial problems of the war.



Our artillery bombards Greece Landships.



.... To little effect.









Our cavalry units start to engage in some economic harassment.



... Oh fun.... A.bombs.



.... Maybe the A.bombs will starve to death?



This is probably uranium. Raze!







Move forward!






Wait! For replaceable rifles.



Or starve the A.bombs, that works too.



Start work on some farms. When we get A.bombs I don't want them starving.



Start work on lumber mills.



Connect some aluminum please.



And oil. Oil sounds nice.





Try to raze some sea luxuries.



Or fight. You know whatever.



Cover the oil.



Get this mine as well.



Woo! Free worker!

[Narkis]

The Greek people are greatly saddened by the Celtic aggression. We had expected opposition after our announcement, but not from our oldest friends. It is our fault, that we did not try more to enlighten them about the wonders of the modern age. And while we will protect our future and our Freedom, we have no desire to fight. We will always accept a return to status quo, to the friendship we have enjoyed for so long.

[Illven]

I surrendered guys!

Mostly cause Narkis already took out one of my cities, and then he had paratroopers stationed outside my other cities.

Gods the Celts were behind.

[Narkis]

Damn. You could've just accepted the offered peace. It's not like I wanted your cities or anything...

[Illven]

Damn. You could've just accepted the offered peace. It's not like I wanted your cities or anything...

I did, and then surrendered.

I feel it's my duty as a good sport/player to at least try to stop you, when you're so close to victory.

The fact that I'm so clearly outmatched, is a sign that it is hopeless, and I should surrender.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

[gg

My only regret is that I could not take Venice first.]

[Ryuho Tsugu]

[So now that victory has been decided, are either of you waiting for the next turn to take screenshots?]

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Following the successful launch of the Greek space-faring vessel, we of the Netherlands acknowledge the unrivaled supremacy of Alexander the Great.

---

A post-victory report on the state of the Netherlands

Native Dutch cities

Amsterdam, the capital city: This was not a very good start position, I feel. A small patch of plains in the south, followed by desert further south (see Utrecht), tundra in the north, a tiny peninsula with some sea resources. I was asked why I had Japan's colors, and I think the reason is somewhere along the line I was supposed to be Japan, who at least would have derived some additional benefit from this position.

Rotterdam: Even worse was this placement, which was mostly bare coast/ocean tiles. I didn't even get to trade most of my whales, especially after Russia got their own source and then the war between them and the Maya and the Shoshone.

Utrecht: Too much desert. If I had a realistic chance of getting Petra, maybe this wouldn't be such a bad spot... but I knew that was never going to happen once I saw all those "{wonder} has been built in a far away land" notifications.

Groningen: I was surprised by the growth in this city, considering I only settled it to get that tile of dyes. I thought about trying to take Tikal and razing it to get more land here (during the Russia/Maya/Shoshone war), but without a proper military at the time and the recent discovery of the other continent (and not wanting to make Greece wary) I decided against it.

Breda: Now, this... this should have been my capital. Marshes I could build polders on and a nice mix of hills and jungles? Yes please. Too bad it was cut off from the rest of my territory by Russia's holdings.

Conquered cities

Almaty: I had to take this city after Venice's player dropped out and the AI puppeted it. Nothing useful, really, though the lower population let me get an airport on this continent a little faster.

Hanoi: Finally, some aluminum. This capture took longer than I was expecting, mostly because Venice had a large treasury to buy defenders every turn for a while.

(not quite) Venice: Almost had it! Also I see that ironclad, Russia.

Bonus: reinforcements for the fleet besieging Venice.

Things other than cities

Policy trees and ideological tenets: I wonder if I should have skipped Aesthetics, as I didn't really get started on Great Works until late and the two policies I wanted from that tree (50% excess happiness to culture and +33% culture in cities with World Wonders) didn't seem to give me much of a boost. Overvaluing these bonuses is a side effect of not playing against real people or AIs higher than Chieftain, I guess. The Commerce/Order/Big Ben setup probably would have worked better if I didn't have to fend off Venice's attempts to usurp my city-state allies, too.

A look at cultural influence: Not much to say from me here; I was never angling for a culture victory. I do think it interesting that the one civ with the most influence is also the only civ with dissidents.

Technology: Even with a spy in Athens (with the blessing of Greece) and Scholars in Residence (which barely passed), I was never able to catch up. Just how large was Greece's tech lead? Ten or more techs ahead, all the time. As soon as I saw that when assigning trade routes, I knew they were likely to win.

Demographics: Not bad, probably, but not really good, either. Always outclassed at something by a large margin...

---



By the way, I didn't need my navy to take Venice on my next turn.

[Illven]

We the spectators would like posts from Russia and or Greece.


Should I put up one as the Mayans?

[The_Snark]

I'll take screenshots as soon as the turn passes to me. I suspect the Greeks would like to see their victory screen, as well

[Narkis]

I'll write one tonight, when I get back home. I don't know if I'll be able to post screenshots though. Dunno how GME handles this stuff.

And please, do.

[Illven]

I'll write one tonight, when I get back home. I don't know if I'll be able to post screenshots though. Dunno how GME handles this stuff.

And please, do.

Hit f12, then show on disk, get them to a image hosting site like photobucket.

I'll write up the Mayan+celtic screens tomorrow most likely.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Alright, I've taken the turn and surrendered the game.

---

I wish I had iron. No iron, no aluminum, no uranium within my borders, just some horses and a lot of oil. Being reliant on keeping ally status with a city-state for what few aluminum I could use was hard, and I'm just glad I could get my two hydro plants up before Venice stole it away again. I hope my start in 14 is a lot better than this (and also not near anyone).

[Narkis]

Hit f12, then show on disk, get them to a image hosting site like photobucket.

I'll write up the Mayan+celtic screens tomorrow most likely.

I know how to take screenshots, I just thought GMR would automatically detect the game ending and I wouldn't get to play another turn. Apparently everyone has to surrender instead though.

[Narkis]

Alright then, end of game report:

First things first: Victory!

Tour of the Empire

Athens: Pretty decent start location, though nothing spectacular. My settler spawned on the jungle hext directly north of the horses and west of the ruins. I absolutely had to move, and I really hate losing my first turn. I almost settled on the formerly forest hex by the river west of the horses, but in the end decided I needed the hill production in order to catch up to the others that settled immediately. Turns out it was the right choice, that plus generous forest chopping gave me an early Great Library, allowing me to pull ahead in tech and stay there for the rest of the game. After the Library was done I kept chopping forests for a settler, because I had already scouted out the place that would become

Sparta: Smack in the middle of Athens and the Zulu capital, I had to have it. Great location for Petra, decent city even without it. Luckily I was able to get the wonder fairly easily (sorry Ryuho Tsugu) and it turned into the production capital of the world. I was also lucky enough to meet a religious city state and get Desert Folklore, putting me in a great position for the religion game.

Corinth: Settled for two reasons: to grab Mt. Sinai, which I couldn't believe the nearby religious city state hadn't gotten already. And to block the Celts from settling on the territory the game reserved for a proper civ, and was left empty by Venice. It was also full of forests, and therefore very defensible if need be. Decent city, but nothing spectacular.

Ulundi: After Sparta built Petra, it focused on building units. I briefly considered taking Venice, an awesome city, but in the end my fear of Impis won out. Plus, Shaka was an AI that nobody would miss. I attacked him with 6 Composites and 2 Companion Cavalry. His defense force was one archer and a couple warriors. It was a foregone conclusion. And the Celts even helped by taking a city I'd have razed otherwise. Ulundi itself never amounted to much. I kept it puppeted for most of the game, asking for little from it and getting just what I asked for.

Argos: If Venice had been any other civ, this would have been one of the cities they settled. As it is, I meant for it to produce a navy to contest the waves. Unfortunately Venetion culture cut it off from the ocean soon after it was founded. My relations with Venice were frosty, at best, and thus I didn't ask for open borders, eventually abandoning my plans for a navy. Argos did produce a substantial part of my air force though.

Knossos: Filler city. I had excess happiness and needed somewhere to buy caravels from or I'd have to forget about hosting the World Congress. Eventually built a few other ships of each own.

Mycenae There was actually a Zulu city on that very spot that I razed on reflex. Afterwords I realized just how good of a city spot it would be. My third greatest city, after Athens and Sparta. Would have been even greater if I'd kept the original.

Other info

Tech tree at the end of the game: Thanks to the early headstart provided by the Great Library, I was able to get every new science building before anyone else, compounding my tech lead until it was completely insurmountable. Towards the end of the game I made a slight mistake and spawned an unwanted Great Engineer, slowing down my victory by two turns and leaving me with an extra Great Scientist that I used for Lasers. It really didn't matter though, the game was all but won long bofore then.

Social Policies and Tenets. I grabbed that extra one in patronage hoping it'd help me buy city states off Venice, but I realised that was infeasible after I wasted a thousand gold or so and focused my efforts on a scientific victory instead of a diplomatic one. Exploration and Commerce were opened after I finished Freedom, only because I had nothing better to do.

Religion: Mine and Venice's. Desert Folklore gave me one of the first religions in the game. I missed out on Tithe, but managed to get Pagodas. I was the first to enhance, but Venice founded their own religion just a turn or two before that, and deprived me of Religious Community. That was the beginning of the rivalry on my end. In their position I'd have asked for a missionary and strengthened relations with one of my neighbours instead of getting a substandard religion of my own.

I forgot to grab screenshots of Demographics and Cultural Influence, but you can see them from Ryuho Tsugu's post. I never considered going for a culture victory, and I was 1st in everything that mattered by the end of the game.

Thoughts

The only time I felt I could've lost the game was in the turns immediately after I discovered the other continent and saw that Russia had conquered two of their neighbours. I was just starting to snawball at the time and while my army was pretty big and I had a technological advantage, I wouldn't be able to hold out against a coalition set on stopping me. I did everything I could to prevent that coalition from materialising, but I think I succeeded largely because Russia was too big and scary, and Venice too annoying to everyone. Can't remember how long that window of opportunity was, but it ended when I built an airforce, especially when I had bombers and paratroopers before anyone had even discovered flight. After that, not even everyone else united could stop me. Delay me and force me to a domination victory yes, but not stop me.

The Celts were the first player civ I met. We were friends for most of the game, until Kesnit mysteriously left. I was worried they'd agreed to sneak attack me with Venice at one point when a Research Agreement expired and wasn't immediately renewed, but apparently it was just my paranoia acting up.

Venice were the second to meet. We never talked all that much, and they annoyed by grabbing the belief I wanted and stealing city-states from me. Were closer than anyone else to a cultural victory, but they were never a threat. Could have conquered at pretty much any point in the game with some effort, and after I built paratroopers I had enough of those in range to surround the city, and enough bombers that even if one survived they could just march right in.

The Netherlands were the third to meet, in the middle of the ocean. They were never in contention for victory, thanks to a very poor start location. We were friends for almost the entire time, and I was never worried they'd betray me.

Russia I was very worried about when we first met. They'd just conquered two of their neighbours, fighting both at the same time. However, when they failed to conquer anyone else and switched gears to a culture victory they stopped being a threat.

Bonus shout-out to Vatican City, that provided me with the faith to grab my pantheon, did not get Mt. Sinai when it should, and donated generously to my coffers throughout the game.

[Illven]

And my end game report.

As the Mayans

So. This game raised my blood pressure a bit.

I was okay with losing in GMR 3, and GMR 5. I got out-played there legitimately, and accept it.

In this game not so much.

I came in about turn 70, after the Mayans had been under Raynfalldown, and Techwarrior.

I had one ****ing city. There are these things called settlers. That I had to build. To get a second city. On Turn ****ing 70....

My previous leaders either absence or complete incompetence along with Shoshone on my borders lead to having absolutely no room to expand well.

Then Russia stole my land. Originally since it was like my first turn, I thought Russia was apologizing for forward settling me which is why I said it was okay, not them apologizing for stealing my territory, which was not okay.

Then I found out oh wait, everyone's playing on Warlord difficulty but me! And the host is going to do jack all to try and fix it! At least when something ****ed up in GMR 12 to make me play super atheist England, Orcus tried to fix it.

Then me and Shoshone declared war on Russia, Russia out hammered and out teched me, and I lost.

I then found out the Shoshone were planning to betray me.

So that was a fun game.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Yeah, if the previous Mayans had been settling cities, I would have been even more screwed. I expected you to say something about me buying all the land I could near Groningen, but I guess Russia was occupying your attention.

[Illven]

Yeah, if the previous Mayans had been settling cities, I would have been even more screwed. I expected you to say something about me buying all the land I could near Groningen, but I guess Russia was occupying your attention.

Russia was occupying my attention/I didn't want to escalate another conflict while in a war already.

[The_Snark]

Post-Game Report: As with the others, we'll start off with a tour of the empire. Spoilered for length, because Photobucket doesn't seem to like links to plain image files...

Spoiler: Cities

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My capital. I can't complain about my start location; lots of wheat set me up for quick early growth, and lots of wine helped direct my religion. Unfortunately, in the late game it started to look pretty unimpressive as capitals go - I don't have a lot of experience playing wide instead of tall, so maybe that's to be expected, but it just wasn't the production powerhouse it needed to be.



My second city. Like the capital, this seemed like a pretty good location, but somehow it never really took off. It was always a solid city, it paid for itself, but it didn't shine. I did end up with access to both aluminum and oil later on, though, which would have been nice if I'd been in a position to leverage either.




My fourth and fifth cities were not exceptional by themselves, but late in the game I started pointing internal trade routes towards them in an effort to boost them - I knew I was going to have to start operating overseas if I wanted to have any chance of winning, and they were as well.

I'm not even a little sorry for these names.



Ah, Jungle Jamboree. My third city, and possibly my downfall, though it's hard to be sure. I knew I might be overreaching when I settled in this location, but my neighbors were being sluggish, and it was just so tempting: three new luxury resources, several basic resources. So I went for it. And I might have gotten away with it, too, if I'd been more careful. Both the Mayans and the Shoshone spent a lot of the early game being controlled by AIs/absentee players, and by the time new players took the reins, Jungle Jamboree was already established. People are less likely to get mad about stuff that happened before they joined. And then... you know what, let's let Past Me explain herself:

So, funny story: when I first settled this city, I thought I'd be able to grab the elephants located just south of my workers. Sure, they were right next to the Shoshone borders, but they weren't within working distance of any cities, so I figured the Shoshone borders would probably grow in other directions. Obviously, I was wrong. Oops. Oh well, it's still a great location.

Shortly afterwards, I finished the Liberty policy tree and got a free Great Person, and thought: hey, there's some elephants I could claim down there. I wouldn't even have to steal the Shoshone elephants and risk a diplomatic hullaballoo - there were some in no-man's-land off to the southeast, and while I wouldn't get any gold out of it I'd at least get access to the resource. It'd involve taking a slight bite out of Mayan territory instead, but the only worthwhile resources (horses) were outside their capital's working radius. And hey, I get extra Production from strategic resources! I figured I'd pacify the Mayans by sending them some gold and wine, no real harm done.

So I bought a Great General and sent him down there. It's a pretty long trip, most of it is marsh or jungle. And then, just a turn or two before he arrived... the Shoshone settled a city right there.



Too bad for them. After all that, I wasn't about to turn back.

I've sent them free wine too. They already have more ivory than they know what to do with, but I've still denied them a couple resources... We'll see how this goes. Have I just pissed off both of my neighbors at the same time? Tune in next time to find out!

Answer: yes, yes I had. Both of them grudgingly accepted my shipments of apology wine, built up an invasion force, and attacked. The city wasn't undefended, and I had enough gold to buy a few units to stave off the inevitable, but... my nearest city at the time was The Boardwalk, with jungle, marsh and a hostile city-state in between. I was not equipped to fight a war of attrition, and they were more prepared.

It was a pretty understandable move on the part of the Mayans (and Shoshone): at that point they didn't have much (if any) room to expand, if they didn't do something they'd be relegated to the status of backwater turtle nations, and I had offered them a reason. Didn't end up working out for them, because my core cities were strong enough to overpower them, but I might've done the same in their shoes.



Apparently I never renamed this city? It started life as a city-state, as Civ veterans can tell, and was allied with the Mayans when they declared war. That basically spelled their doom - I don't normally bother conquering city-states, but this one was right in between my territory and the Mayan cities, rendering it nigh-impossible to launch any retaliatory invasion without taking them out first. So I did. They were an AI-controlled city-state, it wasn't hard.

Looking back, that was a good decision. Multiple horse tiles + stable + the Russian unique ability gave it really good production, and it became one of my most valuable cities almost as soon as it came out of resistance. (I even ended up with a Wonder there, of the I've-built-everything-else-and-need-to-do-something-with-these-hammers variety.) Like my capital and other cities, it sort of lagged behind in the late game, but it seems pretty clear that's a systemic issue rather than a problem with that city. Possibly I should consider being more aggressive against city-states with tempting resources, in future.



This is the former Mayan capital (which I never got around to re-renaming, sorry Illven!). Not being an AI, it was considerably harder to take than Lhasa. As a capital city, it had decent population/infrastructure when I got it, but I feel like the Mayans got a sub-par start location. It eventually ended up being the largest city in my empire, but that came at the expense of production - it's sort of caught up by now, but only with the benefit of a hydro-plant and some ideological tenets got it to this point.



The former Mayan city of Tikal. I took it because... well, it was there, and I was going wide anyway, so I sort of figured I might as well. As you can see here, I never paid much attention to it, and it stayed sort of small-but-functional the entire game, catching up on infrastructure my important cities had already built.



This is the former Shoshone city of Agdaika, founded (by an AI?) in a very unfortunate location. I was not initially planning to conquer the Shoshone: they hadn't actually taken any of my cities, and also they had the Great Wall + Shoshone defensive bonuses, so I figured I'd leave them alone after retaking Jungle Jamboree. But the player remained at war with me (out of a desire to show solidarity with the Maya, I assume) for a while before dropping out, which left me with a quarrelsome AI on my borders. And I had this army lying around, conveniently nearby and out of a job after taking out the Mayans...

It wasn't a habit, I told myself. I could quit conquering cities any time I want.



Taking the former Shoshone capital gave me a trio of wonders, a couple of Great Person improvements, and a lot of territory, but it took a looong time to get out of resistance and rebuild the population/infrastructure to something approaching decent.



Formerly Te-Moak. Look, at this point I was seriously running out of name ideas. It's a decent city location, I guess, but by this time my empire was too large for me to spare much attention to individual cities.



This was the last city I founded, some time after the Shoshone conquest - not that long before the game ended, actually. I had excess Happiness, and wanted to secure more aluminum and oil. I was able to get it up and running pretty quickly, thanks to internal trade routes and a high income. In retrospect, I wonder if I should have been doing this more - my cities were too small to compete with those of Greece, Venice or the Netherlands one-for-one, but having a lot of them might have added up.

Spoiler: Demographics and other statistics

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I had high income and production throughout the entire game (though Greece and their absurdly large cities had me beat), and once I started conquering I had the lead in land (the Dutch only overtook me in the very end). Unfortunately, fighting a lengthy war against the Mayans and Shoshone took its toll: I fell behind in science, which is one of the most critical fields. As of Turn 160, my science income was around 250, which (after a quick glance through the thread) was a third of Greece's. My military score was already falling behind, despite my recent successes, because my troops were outdated. Never really caught back up, as this shows - the best I can say is that I stayed ahead of the Celts.



Post-war, I focused on getting science buildings up in all my old cities, and managed to improve pretty quickly, but Venice, the Netherlands, and especially Greece were all too far ahead for me to catch up to. If the game had lasted longer, I probably would have tried to use nuclear weapons to level the playing field, but as things stand I never even found out whether I had uranium in my territory.



My policies were pretty straightforward: started with Liberty, went for Piety to get the Sacred Sites reformation belief, and then into Aesthetics. (After almost winning a cultural victory in the 4th GMR game, I hoped to avert past mistakes by picking up Aesthetics earlier, but no such luck.)

Not going for Rationalism was probably a mistake. Rationalism is awesome.



Order was a pretty obvious choice, given how large my civilization was. I could have gone for Autocracy instead, but by the time I hit the Industrial Era I knew I was falling behind in science and military, and picking Autocracy would have given the Dutch reason to dislike me. A war with them would have been messy, and I figured I needed to worry more about Greece and Venice.

I never picked up a third-tier tenet, because Order's culture-focused option relies on you having higher Happiness than your enemies, and I was behind for a lot of the game.



Speaking of which: tourism! I decided pretty early on that I was aiming for a cultural victory; I'd snagged the first religion, picked up both Cathedrals and Monasteries, and then gotten Sacred Sites, which gave me a nice head-start on tourism - normally there isn't any to speak of until the mid-late game. Only one of my neighbors founded a religion, and I crushed it after conquering them, meaning I was culturally dominating all my neighbors from relatively early on in the game.

Greece and Venice were the sticking points, however - especially Venice, who was also going for a cultural victory and kept building culture-related Wonders before I could (again, falling behind in tech was killer). They were both culturally strong, and since I didn't meet them until later I didn't get much benefit from all that early tourism. You can't see Venice here, since the Dutch eliminated them, but my influence there was only around ~30%)

The other problem is that while I started off strong, my late-game tourism was below par. Like I said, normally it really starts to take off once people start getting archaeologists and hotels, but mine never improved all that dramatically. I did have a lot of artifacts, which meant I could finally start getting theming bonuses. But my tourism was very diffuse, not concentrated in a few cities, and that made hotels harder to use. The International Games never happened, Science Funding slowed my progress, Venice stole all the useful wonders, and I never even got to airports. Kind of the opposite of Game 4, where I never meant to go for a cultural victory but found myself with an overwhelming late-game advantage almost by accident.

Oh well.

I went from Unknown to Dominant with the Zulus in 4 turns, which was funny.



As Ryohu Tsugu mentions, I suffered from dissidents despite having high tourism. This is because the Netherlands weren't doing their share My influence over them was enough to counter Freedom's influence, but the reverse was not true. Venice's cultural game was quite strong, and would have had me seriously worried if I hadn't been confident in my ability to destroy them before they could win.



On which note: this is the bulk of my military, pictured after the Dutch deported them from former Venetian territory (our open borders treaty had just expired). My invasion of Venice was purely opportunistic - I'd planned on it eventually, but would have delayed longer if the Netherlands hadn't attacked. With the much more substantial Dutch invasion occupying the AI's forces, I hoped I could manage to snatch a city (maybe even the capital, with all its Great Works). No such luck.

I was planning to use the settler to build an airbase within bombardment range of Venice (and maybe Greece). Also visible is a great musician, on his way to Greece for a concert. I had enough faith stored up to buy another 2-3 of these, which (after Venice's elimination) would have put me a lot closer to victory... but probably not close enough; I still had to close a gap of about 10,000 culture before I'd hit Influential with Greece.



Pictured here: the majority of my air force. Even with a range upgrade, my bombers couldn't quite hit the nearest Venetian cities. But most of my cities were inland, so I couldn't produce naval units with them, and I figured I'd get use out of them once I got carriers/a foothold on the other continent.



Here's the other half of my invasion force, pushed into Greek land. Also visible: Greek X-COMs, modern infantry, nuclear weaponry, and a large air force. As soon as they built the Apollo Project I figured someone would need to attack them to stop them from winning, but... it wasn't going to be me. There was just no way.



Nineteen technologies ahead.



The United Nations. For a while I thought/hoped that Greece was going for a diplomatic victory, given their unique ability and strength in the Congress. But diplomatic victory, as I discovered in Game 4, takes forever - especially if other players gang up on you to make sure you can't get the votes, but honestly I've never seen a game run long enough for that to be needed.



As Special Agent Dmitry's rank shows, I got some use out of my spies, but mostly they spent their time schmoozing in Athens and Venice. (Also, apparently I made my special agent into a diplomat and sent an amateur to steal tech from the Netherlands. Oops?)



While I may have fallen behind in every other respect, Sportball is the planet's dominant religion.



Just so you can see how much I'm getting out of the Tithe belief. For some reason, the major powers all had really high incomes for most of the game, two or three times what I'd consider normal.

Overall, I feel like I had a strong start and a decent mid-game, but by the end I was solidly behind. It's hard to tell exactly what I did wrong, although obviously there was something. Was it when I provoked the Mayans and Shoshone with my settler/citadel placement, leading to the loss of Jungle Jamboree and a costly thousand-year war to retake it? Quite possibly. I won that war, and secured a lot of territory in the process, but it took a long time, and when it was over I was seriously behind in tech. I don't think I ever quite recovered from that.

On the other hand, without that war I would have remained a relatively small empire, and I don't think I would have out-competed Greece anyway. So I don't regret the whole Jungle Jamboree mess, I think - whether it benefitted me or not, it was fun to invade and be invaded by an actually competent human player, as opposed to an AI that doesn't know what to do with its units half the time.

I suppose it's possible I should have kept going while I had the momentum and gone for Breda and Groningen, but I don't think more cities would have helped me deal with Greece or Venice. I needed some way to stop their progress/speed up my tourism, and while I probably could have dealt with Venice alone, Greece was way too far ahead.

[Illven]

So wait. Was I or Shoshone competent?

[The_Snark]

I meant you - the Shoshone were back under AI control by the time I got around to them, so I never really fought RagingKrikkit. I guess he had a few archers hanging around taking potshots during the initial siege of Jungle Jamboree, now that I think about it, but you were the spearhead of that invasion.

[Illven]

I meant you - the Shoshone were back under AI control by the time I got around to them, so I never really fought RagingKrikkit. I guess he had a few archers hanging around taking potshots during the initial siege of Jungle Jamboree, now that I think about it, but you were the spearhead of that invasion.

Huh. I feel like my weakest point is war.

Also my tendency to over focus on Science.

[Narkis]

Overall, I feel like I had a strong start and a decent mid-game, but by the end I was solidly behind. It's hard to tell exactly what I did wrong, although obviously there was something. Was it when I provoked the Mayans and Shoshone with my settler/citadel placement, leading to the loss of Jungle Jamboree and a costly thousand-year war to retake it? Quite possibly. I won that war, and secured a lot of territory in the process, but it took a long time, and when it was over I was seriously behind in tech. I don't think I ever quite recovered from that.

On the other hand, without that war I would have remained a relatively small empire, and I don't think I would have out-competed Greece anyway. So I don't regret the whole Jungle Jamboree mess, I think - whether it benefitted me or not, it was fun to invade and be invaded by an actually competent human player, as opposed to an AI that doesn't know what to do with its units half the time.

I suppose it's possible I should have kept going while I had the momentum and gone for Breda and Groningen, but I don't think more cities would have helped me deal with Greece or Venice. I needed some way to stop their progress/speed up my tourism, and while I probably could have dealt with Venice alone, Greece was way too far ahead.

I'd say your mistake was not being aggressive enough. You should've realised Jungle Jamboree would lead to war and prepared to attack before they're ready, instead of the other way around. You'd be in a much better position if you'd conquered them faster and didn't have to retake Jamboree in the process.

[The_Snark]

Huh. I feel like my weakest point is war.

Also my tendency to over focus on Science.

I'm not sure that's possible. And most of my experience with Civ combat is against the AI, so I dunno how my standards match the baseline.

I'd say your mistake was not being aggressive enough. You should've realised Jungle Jamboree would lead to war and prepared to attack before they're ready, instead of the other way around. You'd be in a much better position if you'd conquered them faster and didn't have to retake Jamboree in the process.

Possibly, yeah. I tend to avoid being aggressive, especially in the early game - it feels very risky, since you're gambling that your conquests will make up for the time you didn't spend building up your home cities. But risk-averse does not necessarily make for good strategy.