Ideas for SGTOM 15

Persannaly I think strong defender at the beginig is not a good idea, espessially for Democracy on Deity level. Ais will use them to pillage around and WW will kill positive things.
Overall it will be very contraintuitive, lets have just Democracy, from start. It is already strong perturbation. To avoid "early domination" we may have Archipilago map and remove Military Traditions from Tecnological tree. At Deity Diplomatic, Conquest and Domination will be approximatly equal then. To have 20 K feasible we may reduce it to 10 K. I did not play 20K myself but in general Culture grow as t^1.8 approximately, so 10 K approximatly 1.5 times faster then 20K.

I. Larkin said:

Persannaly I think strong defender at the beginig is not a good idea, espessially for Democracy on Deity level. Ais will use them to pillage around and WW will kill positive things.

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This is exactly what Overseers proposal solves - have the strong defenders immobile, for ever stuck inside the city in which they were built.

ThinkTank said:

This is exactly what Overseers proposal solves - have the strong defenders immobile, for ever stuck inside the city in which they were built.

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We might face AI towns with 20+ defenders because they need defenders somewhere else.
And we might face AI towns with 20+ settlers waiting for a defender escorting them...

I like the 1/6/1 spear. At least it's slow. And a human player would be too slow if he started pillaging big time. The impact I'd consider smaller than the (late) abuse of armies in typical human strategies. Players would have to block invading stacks or cope with pescy intruders. I like it.

We might also strengthen arties (lethal or stronger bombardment) to encourage using them and build mixed SoDs.
Archers (and longbows, guerillas) might also get (stronger and offensive) artillery ability.

Ok, the exploits that Overseer and I.Larkin pointed out are indeed annoying. But I still don't like the idea of making the strong defender immobile in order to fix these exploits, because I usually have 2-3 towns with barracks devoted to building military units, while the others build settlers/workers/infrastructure first. This means these other towns would either be undefended or would need to waste precious time to build one or two of the defenders first.

I would prefer to build my defenders in the barracks towns and then move them to where they are needed. So here is a different idea, which hopefully solves the above problems: how about we leave the units (and the tech tree) alone and just increase the defensive bonus of a town to something like 300%? Then a regular 1/2/1 spear would have defense factor 8 when stationed in a town, but only 2 when in the open field! This would still achieve my original intent of rendering aggressive wars useless and at the same time prevent the above exploits. Or are there any other drawbacks with this approach?

Lanzelot said:

Ok, So here is a different idea, which hopefully solves the above problems: how about we leave the units (and the tech tree) alone and just increase the defensive bonus of a town to something like 300%? Then a regular 1/2/1 spear would have defense factor 8 when stationed in a town, but only 2 when in the open field! This would still achieve my original intent of rendering aggressive wars useless and at the same time prevent the above exploits. Or are there any other drawbacks with this approach?

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I am affraid that it will bring MT Tech even more important. To gain space we will need tonns of Armies like Sir Pled did in early Sid game. This game style was very slow and not good for SGTOM. Going to Diplo will be also slow as it will be difficult to oversetteled and overresearch AIs with this setting. I think human should have a chance for successful war. Knights may do it befor GP. But that's it.
One of the idea of removing MT is to see, how Tanks, Bombers and other MW works. With present Cav strength and conect / disconect exploit "Industrialisation" part of the Tech tree has no use.

Whatever is decided, I think the concepts need tested. Our super spear could cause problems if immobile, but it would be other problem if mobile. Maybe we need to ask some folks over in the C&C for some input as to the best solution.

I favour the idea of allowing everyone to build every unit in the game, as it will lead to some interesting tactical discussions. Or will it just lead to MW->Knight Replacement*->Sipahi? More interesting from an AI pov, really. If this were done, I'd take the "Starts GA" flag off every UU. Removing this flag has often been a Predator obstacle in C/GOTM.

* This is perhaps the most interesting choice. I can see any one of the replacement units being selected, given certain circumstances.

I made biq file trying to take into account what we have discussed. May be somebody test it.

It is 80,100, 200 defence bonus, No MT, no Republic, all starts from Democracy.

Culture VC set to 10K.

Democracy at republic position, free artisty coast factor are reduced .

Good things are 2 Lux and Resources, bad is that Persia too close.

Good that AI accross sea are accessible, but bad that no rivers and food bonuses.

But it is playeble, I think.

Will I be eligible for participating in SGOTM 15, if I playtest it?! (But not sure, whether I will have time for it... COTM61 looks not exactly easier than COTM60 )

Lanzelot

Ok, I playtested this and got to 1000BC. There is one point I find note-worthy: the AI switches back to Despotism as soon as possible... When I met Russia in 2500BC, they were already in Despotism. All others that I met, sooner or later revolted and also switched back to Despotism.

The only exception: when I met America, I noticed, that they already had Philosophy and Monarchy. They must have succeeded in the "Monarchy Slingshot"... So they were the only country that didn't switch to Despotism, but remained in Monarchy.

Perhaps their high unit support is eating them? We either need to disable Despotism, or allow the AI a higher unit support?! But then we would probably need to remove the defensive bonus again?!

In any case, for your review here is the 1000BC save. I managed to get all AA techs (except for Democracy and Artistry) and Monotheism & Engineering. (I had gifted Russia, Korea and Persia into the MA. Greece (ourselves), Russia and Korea all got Monotheism, Persia got Engineering, and I was able to trade that.) The rest is more or less backward. So I think the game is well playable and winnable.

The next step now would probably be declare on Persia. I didn't do this at this point, because I can't say how well our horses would do against the Defense bonus?!

The big question now is: When do we start?

Regards, Lanzelot

I. Larking suggested that I import this idea from another thread, so here goes... with a version of it to interest experienced players perhaps.

A Huge pangea Deity map with 15 tribes playing as the Byzantines. Or at least not as the Celts, Japan, the Aztecs, the Inca, or India, but Germany might work as interesting, and preferably a scientific tribe. Pre-selected fast research opponents. The team can only win by conquest (though all victory conditions come as enabled), with the variant as horseless: no horseback units may get trained (including ancient cavalry). Or perhaps a 'relaxed horseless', where no units on horseback may get used in battle, though they may get used to short-rush other or buildings.

Persanaly I prefer Archipelago. And "huge" map is not good for SGTOM. Game preferably must be fast, ad have not many Cities to manage. I think standard map is most reasonable for SGTOM.
Alan posted discouraged post assuming that "No more SGTOMs". IIRC Renata now "oficial" SGTOM manager, but I did not see him for very long time...

I realise you may be enjoying this discussion, but please check out my new thread on the future of SGOTM. I suspect that needs to be resolved first.

"Horseless" variant sounds interesting. Reasonable settings could be: Deity, Standard map, Continents with 70 % water (not too much land).
Home continent could be taken with swordsmen/MI and in order to conquer other continent research to Replaceable Parts (infantry and artillery) will be needed probably.

I found the Alexander 3000bc very unattractive. Didn't even play it. Maybe later.

2 Civs on that tiny island? Please.

Cyc said:

I found the Alexander 3000bc very unattractive. Didn't even play it. Maybe later.

2 Civs on that tiny island? Please.

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It was a very interesting start with great potential. Take a look at the Alexander 1000BC file (especially at F6) and you may change your mind... When was your last Deity game in which you reached the Middle Ages by 1000BC?

Lanzelot said:

It was a very interesting start with great potential. Take a look at the Alexander 1000BC file (especially at F6) and you may change your mind... When was your last Deity game in which you reached the Middle Ages by 1000BC?

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Ok. I'll take a look.

EDIT: Well, you appear to have done a lot better than I did. Too bad those barb ships sunk my little Curragh. I did manage to deprive the Persians of Iron, though.

So now my options are.... Kiil the Perians. I'm 500 points behind the Leader. Someone will win by Culture in a short while. And I'm weak to most, average to the others. With no navy. Fun, fun, fun.

Cyc said:

Well, you appear to have done a lot better than I did. Too bad those barb ships sunk my little Curragh. I did manage to deprive the Persians of Iron, though.

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Don't stop after one curragh...! I sent out four and two survived and found a lot of contacts.

Yes, your land grab was better than mine. However, this came at the price of fewer towns and they are further away from the capital, so less production/income.

A tip for research: Mathematics doesn't seem good in your situation. Two of your three contacts already know it. Better would be Literature, which is a good trading opportunity most of the time. (But it may already come a bit too late in this case.)

But in a "real" succession game, you would have gotten advice and interesting ideas from many players, and the game position would look better than both of our attempts, with an interesting war against Persia taking place right now...
I can tell you: in an SGOTM, the game would be fun by now! (And a great learning opportunity on top.)

Cheers, Lanzelot