SGOTM4 - Team Smackster

SGOTM4 - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

Here is the start position.


Note: EVERYONE has to install the correct resource graphics whether or not they have played this scenario or GOTM before. If you haven't done it yet, you had better get a wriggle on.

The saves will be available once the timelock has been released tonight (19th September).

Here are some links you might find useful.

The original GOTM28 Announcement.
The Draft Constitution
The GOTM Reference Thread.
SGOTM4 - Maintenance Thread
Download latest Save.
Upload a Save.

This Months' sponsored variant is 5 City Challenge the rules for which are as follows.

1. You may not end a turn with more than 5 cities.

Team Leaders: It would be a good idea to PM your team mates to get them all checked in here as soon as is possible.

Good luck everyone!

Reporting to the team....
lets get together and discuss a little our strategy for the game

EDIT: While waiting for the rest I'd like to give my 2cents worth of thoughts...

On my personal experiences:
I played 2 test 5CC games for Indians on monarch level. It's quite easy to win actually... Much easier than previous game was....Frankly it all depends on start location and major early resources like having iron and horses...
1st game i achieved 20K cultural victory and second won with space race...

On victory type
Unlike the previous game where we could played for centuries before choosing the victory type we have to come up with the goal at the very beginning..
Obviously 100K Cultural and Domination victories are impossible to achieve by definition.

Conquest would be the hardest victory to produce IMHO, but it could be the one Laurel worthy. On the other hand if we manage to get couple of leader very early and build few AA great wonders we can be in better shape for 20K victory relative to the Jason date/score system....
I am anxious to hear what Tarkeel has to say about the strategy he has for us.

On cities placement:
Having only 5 cities it should be very important to keep cities on the distances where they can use every and each square of land with no overlapping at all if possible. For both of my test games i used RCP5 placement, that allows to have maximum numbers of squares for citizens to work on...

On resources:
This is the biggest challenge in 5CC, or so i felt while playing...
You won't have all possible resources having only 5 cities... In my 1st game I only had available horses, saltpeter and 2 luxuries. and that was for the entire game, i had no iron, no coal, no rubber nothing else. had to trade and purchase everything.
In my second game i was luckier and had iron, 3 luxuries, rubber, coal and uranium and had one city built iron work.
If we choose conquest we probably will be okay since we can always establish colonies we will have to guard, but with conquest it will be hard to keep all this land free and protect it from other AI settlements.
If we choose something else but conquest extensive trading will help...

On research:

It's only a monarch
So i had no problems keeping the lead. But that lead i had was only a marginal in both of my games..
I had to trade tech right away and I had at most 2 techs lead and many times none at all..
Main reason - I had to trade... Many times I traded tech the same or next turn I researched it. I noticed that when i didn't do so
AIs would get it VERY soon and I'd rather get some money from them that allow them to research on their own and get rich quick.
Of course that applied in situation when I ran for a cultural victory and AIs most of the time were not crippled by massive warfare.

On trading:

I traded and traded and traded... starting from industrial ages i never had less than 1000 in cash and still i was able to rush every improvement.
MOst of the time my cities were producing wealth since there was nothing else to produce and military units would cost to much to support.

On warfare:

I had fought quite few wars... I changed to republic as soon as it was practically possible and always stayed in republic.
Republic in non-modded PTW has no unit support and i could not build a huge army... But my army was always up to date and
i always had enough to protect my land, but not for the serious conquest.
Wars on monarch level are easy, and we won't have problems with AIs in any situation, given resources are available.


Well, I think that is pretty much everything i had in mind to share with you guys....

MORE EDITS: I hope DH shows up, i paged week ago, he had problems with CIV disk, but he said he will be available for this game.
If he doesn't report in 2 or 3 days or until it is his turn to play we will have to ask MB for a replacement.

I will take the first 20 turns then. Any suggestions?

@Tarkeel: You had some "major" plans for this game, now is the time to reveal them...
What I remember from this game as gotm28 was that moving NE across the river had been a better startup position than settling in place. Also that if the setup is similar we will have to hold off with at least 2 cities until A: we reach the southern area (Persia) for Iron and B: another island for horses.

VC: either 20K or diplo. Diplo is probably the easiest and also less "luck" sensitive. With 20K we need to have some luck with leaders and being a non-militant civ that could be a problem.

Checking in

My main idea for the game, was to go for a 20K victory.. Which might actually be one of the better ways in this. Remember that great leaders can rush wonders here, so we should be trying to stay at war with someone the entire time, and farm leaders for what we're good for.

I'll add some more details to it later, have a nasty cold now

Edit: Note that this is relaxed 5CC, we can have more then 5 cities during the turn, just not at the end. (handy for second army)

Edit2: Gong to list our cultural buildings here:

1950 BC: Temple

Wotan said:

I will take the first 20 turns then. Any suggestions?

@Tarkeel: You had some "major" plans for this game, now is the time to reveal them...
What I remember from this game as gotm28 was that moving NE across the river had been a better startup position than settling in place. Also that if the setup is similar we will have to hold off with at least 2 cities until A: we reach the southern area (Persia) for Iron and B: another island for horses.

Click to expand...

I didn't play original game so i have no idea on what the map was there...
MB changed much of the geography in Rome SGOTM compared with the original game. One can presume he changed map this time as well...

@Wotan: You have 1st 20 turns and remember these 20 turns are probably 50 percent of the end result

Wotan said:

VC: either 20K or diplo. Diplo is probably the easiest and also less "luck" sensitive. With 20K we need to have some luck with leaders and being a non-militant civ that could be a problem.

Click to expand...

How about space race???? That one is easier than diplo... It all depends on the relative Jason dates... We need to have a good understanding on which winning date in Diplo corresponds to which winning date in 20 k or for Space Race... Personally, I have no idea and if someone can clear this up i'd really appreciate...
One of the reasons we lost previous game was missunderstanding of victory types and date relationships

Tarkeel said:

Checking in

I'll add some more details to it later, have a nasty cold now

Click to expand...

You'd better get better, we will need your talents soon

dmanakho said:

@Wotan: You have 1st 20 turns and remember these 20 turns are probably 50 percent of the end result

Click to expand...

OK so to avoid any confusion at the end of the game any result but the golden laurel will actually be my fault.

dmanakho said:

How about space race???? That one is easier than diplo... It all depends on the relative Jason dates... We need to have a good understanding on which winning date in Diplo corresponds to which winning date in 20 k or for Space Race... Personally, I have no idea and if someone can clear this up i'd really appreciate...

Click to expand...

Diplo and SS both depend on a fast research. With diplo we only need to build the UN in one of our cities. SS need 10 items built over a span of time.

With diplo we could theoretically hold on to one leader until UN and just "follow" the flow in the game and keeping everyone happy with us while doing so.

20K will probably need a luck factor, the RNG god(s) need to be on our side.

All in all I would say that 20K is least influenced by 5CC, SS the most influenced by it. OTOH, 20K is the option with the highest luck factor so: Do we feel lucky? If so 20K. If not Diplo.

I concur with Wotan, out of victory types diplo followed by 20K are the most favorable in 5CC game...
While Space race is possible, it will take too much time to research all the nessesary technologies having just 5 cities and victory will definetely be too late in relation to Jason best date. In my test games with slider set to 100% i was never able to research modern tech faster than 9-10 turns and AIs were not much help.

Does anybody know the Jason best dates for Diplo and 20K victory? or where can i find such information?

We can and probably should start this game as 20K and if we fail to produce 2 or 3 early wonders we should just stick with Diplo.

One important point: If we go for 20K (lets assume we are incredibly lucky at the beggining) we might have to make a desicion at the end... It's more than likely we will build UN before achieving 20K points, and if it is so we will have to choose whether we want to finish a game with diplomatic victory or postpone election for 20K. This decision will pretty much depend on whether best Jason date diplomatic victory comes much earlier than 20K and whether we are not the 1st variant team to finish the game.

Too bad with 5CC green laurels are totally out of the question, and frankly, i don't understand non-variant teams, since this game is going to be ridiculously easy to play on monarch level and not much fun.


EDIT: I have to correct myself here... It looks like all teams play variant.... So, I guess we can target both laurels.... That means a lot of trading to get those happy producing luxuries for our people

Sorry for the double posting...
I had nothing to do so i looked at the Jason calculator for GOTM 28 and got the dates... I assume that dates for this game will be either the same or proportional.

So the best dates are:

Conquest 1200AD
Cultural 20k 1760AD
Cultural 100k 1555AD
Diplomatic 1010AD
Domination 970AD
Space Race 1330AD

Max Score 7483

This is the direct link http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php

Knowing this puts Diplomatic victory in a very bad position. We can have a 20K cultural win 700 years (and hellowa lot of turns) later but still be in a better position than if we went for Diplo victory.....

Checking in, but just got back from transatlantic flight, so wont say anything until tomorrow. I've played GOTM35 as a 5CC so have a few ideas. Actually a few ideas of what not to do.

smackster

Lunchtime, so I thought I would use the time to put down my thoughts.

If the map start is identical/similar to gotm28 (all plans below depend on that), moving the Worker E to confirm the existance of a cow would be my first move. If the cow is there I would move the Settler NE across the river and settle there. In gotm28 that move gained a second cow and a spice. (I settled the starting location myself )

I plan to build 2 Warriors followed by a Settler. First Warrior goes S, second N. Settler to settle coastal location S of Delhi.

Pottery at 100% followed by Writing in 40 turns.

There will be no Horses on the startup island and the only Iron will be deep within Persia. So three cities built in the opening turns, one city kept from Persia w. Iron and the fifth city built near Horses.

Second city on coast to act as 20K city if we go that road.

I can play tonight (6 hours from now), if you agree to my plans, else I might have to wait until wednesday.

Sounds like a plan. Would it make sense to make a capital 20K city since we can't use FP for prebuilds. Capital might look like more attractive choice with 0% corruption, even without the coastal wonders we can build everything else. (Oracle or Pyramids -4CP, GreatLibrary -6Cp, Hanging Gardens - 4?CP)

No matter which path you choose build that early temple ASAP in 20K city... Temples are awfully cheap for Indians.

Pottery is not a big deal in this game i think sinse we only have to produce 4 settlers. So why bother with pottery???

Not trying to argue but rather playing devil's advocate.

It sounds like map features won't let us to have perfect core RCP5 or 6 ring i was hoping for.... Corruption will vary for different cities.

Looking forward for what Smackster has to say on his experiences.

Thoughts on the starting moves

I'm trying to play this, like I have not played it before. So my start moves would be worker to the mountain, settler east and decide from there whether to settle or move again. That combination seems to show the most tiles. If I was MB, I'd tweak the original and move any bonus resources

As any game, settling on a river, and getting a bonus resource (or two) in the expanded radius of the capital is most important, and worth moving a few squares for

Thoughts on 5CC

I've played on 5CC now so I'm far from an expert on this

Pottery or not to Pottery

In normal games, the best way to start is obviously with the usual settler factory, and you need a granary for that. I'm not convinced that is the way with a 5CC. Is it better to push out a couple of settlers first? I still think getting a granary is helpful, but maybe not until all 5 cities are settled. Maybe we should decide this based on the start location, and how many shields we get, combined with a forest chop to see how many turns to get the granary.

But back to the question, to Pottery or not to Pottery. Its really nice to be able to start researching a level two at 10/20% from the start. But then to get the granary we need to trade for Pottery. In my experience there is an even chance of that happening before the first settler is built. However if we agree that pushing a out a settler first is a good idea, then we are much more likely to have the contact for Pottery.

I think I'd tend towards the level 2, and if we don't get Pottery then it would not be so bad as we can just keep pushing out settlers, and there are only 4 to produce. Granary is still good even after that, for workers, and just for growth.

Rivers
Obviously its a huge benifit to build next to rivers as we can get our 5 cities all growing to size 12.

City Placement
RCP 5, is certainly optimal, but I wonder if RCP 6 would be better as it gives us more tile coverage. We will have to look at the dot maps to determine. I don't think the corruption difference is that bad.

RCP 6 will help green laurel too, as we'll get more land quickly

The Sea, the sea

Obviously getting a city on the coast would really help. Actually I think this is key as we will eventually want to trade overseas. If we can't get one out of our first ring, we may have to build the 5th city at the coast, the corruption may be a lot worse however.

Victory condition
UN is probably the easiest to get, although I like the idea of a 20k. Not sure where it says we have to decide first.

UN or SS would really challenge our powers of getting the AI to research. My theory here is that we need to keep all the AI tech even at all times, and chose a designated tech researcher, who is not paying us GPT. All the other civs, we need to get into a position where they are paying us all their GPT. The result is that we have lots of cash, and when our researcher gets something, only we can buy it, and then we sell/gift to the others.

Therefore getting into the tech lead is most important. Getting the AI into at least republic as soon as possible too.

First moves concensus

Wotan, how about playing the first move and posting what you see. Then we can make a team decision on the next step. I usually just leave the first 20 for the first person to decide, so its up to you, I'll be on-line all day.

Ok, went home early today so have just fired up the PC and moved the Worker E. The Cow is there!! I suggest moving the Settler NE and settle hoping for the 2nd Cow and the spice being where they are supposed to be...

Edit: Have made the move and settled in 3950, Delhi, no wait, Carthage founded, Warrior started. We are not India we are Carthage.

Research is a new issue too. We are no longer Religious but Industrious so Masonry is in and CB is out. Shall we go 100% on CB? Or 40 turns Math/Writing? Math might be a good bargaining chip since we are definitely first to get it. OTOH everything discovered so far is identical to Gotm28 so we might have but one neighbour on the island.

Spacerace say: India, Greece, Otto, Rome, Babylon, Persia, Vikings, Celts and Germans. In Gotm 28 we had persia as next door neighbour and Rome across the sound on an adjacent island. So maybe we have Greece/Rome as neighbours now. The question then is who is on our island and who is closeby? Carthage's prime enemy should be Rome and on this map still taking Gotm28 into account the only Iron was way south. If M-B is as dastardly as he can possibly be we will have Rome as our closest neighbour since the Iron will give them Legions. If so they share Masonry with us and have WC to trade.

@Wotan, good - start milking the cow and do lots of exploring


@Smackster and Wotan Do you think it is possible to have RCP5 or 6 ring on this map????

It's important to decide which city will become 20K city now and my vote goes to capital.... (no corruption and we can't do prebuilds anyways).
And if capital is 20K city my build order would be warrior, warrior, temple,settler, Great Wonder (possibly pyramid or oracle) and 2nd and even 3rd city will produce the other 3 settlers.

EDIT: Didn't know we are not India anymore, just read your entire message

EDIT: CB may be worth researching at maximum, should take somewhere 18-20 turns i'd think????? Early temple is a must in 20K game, but it won't be as cheap as if we were Indians.

MORE EDITS: Early tech trade is not going to be a big issue whether we go Math or Writing since on Monarch level AIs are not that good and not fast.
If we are going to research writing we still going to be first to research Philosophy and code of laws use those for tech trading and quickest way to convert into Republic. Plus library for great wonder

MORE MORE EDITS: It's even worse situation than i thought, we would not need iron that much if we were Indians and Elephants and perfect timing for Golden age to build all those MA wonders. Beeing a carphage really puts us into the worser position.

I assume we are settled on the 20k then.

In that case, maybe we should go for CB and get that early temple. We should still be able to get ahead in tech as its only Monarch level. Now I'm confused about being Carthage and wonder if this is a mistake, I'll send a PM to MB to check. I wonder if we'll also find its Diety level really

Can you post a map?

smackster

smackster said:

I assume we are settled on the 20k then.

In that case, maybe we should go for CB and get that early temple. We should still be able to get ahead in tech as its only Monarch level. Now I'm confused about being Carthage and wonder if this is a mistake, I'll send a PM to MB to check. I wonder if we'll also find its Diety level really

Can you post a map?

smackster

Click to expand...

Yes, Please clear with MB if we are really Carthage or it is a mistake

I guess we just assumed it would be India, I had a second look at the announcement and it only says "based on Gotm28 India". I have counted and counted the 20 first turns and am ready to play the remaining turns now. Not much of a map atm but all visible tiles are the same as in gotm28.

No mistake.