SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

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BtS SGOTM 11 - Welcome the Goddess



Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 11 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

You are playing as Gandhi and, appropriately, your civilization is dedicated to the worship of the Goddess of Peace, Eldine, who will enter the world to bring in an era of everlasting happiness on the very day that you prove her righteousness to the world by securing a peaceful victory over the other civilizations. There is but one problem. Eldine is currently naked and must be clothed when she enters the world. In order to clothe her in a manner as befits a great Goddess, you must have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory. Your Holy books tell you that Eldine will use the fur as a portal through which to enter the world, and to demonstrate your devotion to her, you must have a welcoming party ready on the fur: Four great people (to symbolise Eldine's greatness) and four warriors (to symbolise the toil and labour as you raised Eldine's great civilization from a single settler). This will be no easy feat, since rumour has it that fur is so rare that only one unique supply exists, and that is heavily guarded by the most vile barbarians. Doubtless this was the result of meddling by the Devil Satan when the world was young and the Gods not paying sufficient attention.

Oh, and Eldine detests war and all its trappings. On the day she enters the world, she will question your brother and sister AI civs to ascertain how you have treated them, and will be distressed beyond belief should she discover that you have been excessively warlike towards them - in that case she will reject your civilization and look for more worthy worshippers.

Your aim in this game is to welcome in Eldine by securing a cultural or diplomatic victory that satisfies the following conditions:

  • Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.
  • All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.
  • You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)
  • You are running a state religion which has been spread to every one of your cities.
  • No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

The winner of the competition is the team that secures the earliest (measured by date) cultural or diplomatic victory where all these conditions are satisfied on the turn of your victory. Obviously your game is forfeit should you lose the game or win by some other victory condition. If you win a cultural or diplomatic victory without satisfying all the conditions, your game will be listed and ranked within a secondary group for the amusement of other teams (especially if you do something silly that makes it impossible for you satisfy the conditions, like letting ivory become obsolete, or having fewer than 4 warriors when your tech becomes too advanced to let you build any more).

Timetable
The start files will be published on Friday, April 23 here. There will be one start file per team. Please ensure that you only download your own team file.

The finish deadline is August 23 2010. If any team has not finished by this date they will be deemed to have retired, and will not be eligible for any awards.

Starting Position
Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters
  • Playable Leader/Civ - Gandhi of India
  • Traits - Spiritual, Philosophical (starts with Mysticism and Mining)
  • Unique Unit - Fast Worker (replaces Worker)
  • Unique Building - Mausoleum (replaces Jail)
  • Starting Era - Ancient
  • Difficulty - Emperor
  • Game Speed - Epic (750 turns)
  • World size - Standard
  • Rivals - Six
  • Landform - Fractal
  • Sea level - Medium
  • Climate - Temperate
  • Other settings - No goodie huts, No events
  • Victory Conditions - All enabled
Notes
  • Versions
    This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using the HoF Mod BUFFY-3.19.003. This HoF Mod version is available here.

    If a later BtS patch, or BUFFY version, is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in the above versions before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

    Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows game on their system.
  • Awards
    Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the Fastest victory that meets the above stated conditions, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  • Rules and Procedures
    Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

    All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.
Have fun :)
 
Plastic Ducks



♫Plastic Ducky, you're the one!
You make bathtime so much fun!
Plastic Ducky, we're awfully fond of you!♫

-Dhoomstriker​

Welcome to our SGOTM 11 team!

Roster
1. Duckweed
2. Bugg123
3. dingding
4. kossin
5. BornInCantaloup
6. Udey1
Click to expand...

In this post you will find links that will be updated throughout the competition to the sets played, informative posts and the likes.

SETS and SUMMARY

Set 1 [t0-t36; 4000BC-3100BC] ; Ag+BW
Spoiler :

After debating whether to settle the Plains Hill or in place, we calculated that settling on the Plains Hill was actually better for research early on, despite the 1 turn delay as it will grow faster. It would also save one forest tile for chopping purposes, but also it opened up the possibility of grabbing another resource in the BFC that we couldn't yet see [silver].

Techwise, Agriculture was mandatory and we decided on Bronze Working afterwards. Hoping to get a discount from meeting an AI with Agriculture, we started with BW until the very last moment [t5] where we switched to Agriculture - before resuming BW.

Exploration started to the NE where we met Zara on t3. We scouted in his direction to find his borders before continuing counter-clockwise while fighting animals, earning our exploring warrior Woodsman-II.
Delhi micro was aimed at getting a second warrior out before the first settler while at size 4.

Plan

Techs:
Agriculture 3575BC
Bronze Working 3125BC

Cities:
Delhi 3975BC



Set 2 [t36-t45; 3100BC-2875BC] ; TW
Spoiler :
After some discussions and tests, we agreed that commerce would be the limiting factor in this game, especially early on. As a result, Delhi was micro'd to work the unimproved silver and start a settler at size 4. The worker was sent to mine the silver ASAP while research was directed on The Wheel to connect our first two cities to in turn generate more commerce and hammers.
We tried to explore the coasts as much as possible for hints of islands.

Plan

Techs:
The Wheel 2900BC



Set 3 [t45-t60; 2875BC-2500BC] ; Poly+PH
Spoiler :
After seeing land across water in several directions,we pretty much agreed to gun for the GLH. But first, we aimed at grabbing Oracle>Code of Laws to make good use of our leader traits by spawning 2 quick Great Persons.

Therefore research was directed via Polytheism>Priesthood [Poly as we would no doubt go for Aesthetics+Literature].

Bombay was settled NW of the copper for immediate access to its best tile, it borrowed corn from Delhi while the copper was being improved and started on a settler after 5 turns of SH for failure gold. Worker micro was road first to get the trade routes rather than more hammers (chop). Delhi made 2 quick workers to help develop the land.

Plan

Techs:
Polytheism 2625BC

Cities:
Bombay 2750BC



Set 4 [t60-t72; 2500BC-2200BC] ; PH+AH
Spoiler :
After Priesthood, we wanted to unlock Writing for several obvious reasons. We also wanted Animal Husbandry to reveal horses, get another research multiplier on Writing and eventually hook up the pig city - we also made sure to leave our workers able to improve horses right away should they appear at a usable location (which they did in Bombay). After testing several attempts with the science slider, we came up with an approach that allowed to complete The Oracle as Writing would come in.
Delhi focused on The Oracle while Bombay finished growing to 2 on SH before resuming the settler for the GLH city.

Plan

Techs:
Priesthood 2475BC
Animal Husbandry 2225BC



Set 5 [t72-t82; 2200BC-1950BC] ; Writing -- Oracle
Spoiler :

This set was mostly about worker moves, trying to complete The Oracle together with Writing and kicking off our third city, Vijayanagara whose primary goal was building the GLH for us so a hammer city. We also met Justinian via workboat during this set, confirming our idea about intercontinental trade routes possibilities.

Plan


Techs:
Writing 2000BC
Code of Laws 1950BC (Oracle)

Cities:
Vijayanagara 2050BC


Set 6 [t82-t88; 1950BC-1800BC] ; Masonry -- First GP
Spoiler :

Further pursuit of the GLH led us to research Masonry next as we had worker turns to use for quarrying Stone and Marble. We also converted to Confucianism and revolted to Caste System to run several specialists in Delhi in the hopes of landing an early Academy. With 82% odds, we successfully generated our first Great Scientist.

Plan with some additions.



Set 7 [t88-t103; 1800BC-1425BC] ; Masonry+Fishing+Sailing+Mathematics -- Second GP
Spoiler :

A lot happening in this turnset. For one, we gambled our 6 exp Woodmans-II warrior in an open fight against a barbarian warrior (50% odds). Losing would be losing but winning would give us 4xp, giving us a level 4 unit to unlock the Heroic Epic - which is how we unlocked it during this turnset! Having saved up gold (plus 48 failure gold thanks to SH) and an Academy in place, research also picked up as we also generated a second Great Scientist in Delhi which was settled. Once Stone was hooked up, we whipped a near-complete Chariot into The Pyramids which was to be our 2nd Wonder for Representation to make our 'SE' more powerful. We settled the pig-fish city, with pig in the first ring so that we could use the city sooner rather than later. Workboats would be produced to go exploring.
Finally, research finished the GLH requirements before moving on towards Currency via Mathematics (for better chops).

Techs:
Masonry 1775BC
Fishing 1750BC
Sailing 1650BC

Cities:
Pataliputra 1525BC

Plan



Set 8 [t103-t111; 1425BC-1225BC] ; Mathematics+Pottery+Currency -- Pyramids
Spoiler :

We finally met another AI, Saladin via our exploring workboat. The Pyramids were completed with a few chops [we aggressively whipped a granary and library next in Delhi before putting some hammers on Temple of Artemis while growing] and the GLH was started in Vijayanagara, focused on production tiles with some chops starting to come in. We decided to swap in Pottery after Mathematics to get granaries going and start cottages around Delhi a bit. Sadly, we lost out on the Oasis city area to Zara as we didn't prioritize chopping another settler in Bombay enough.

Techs:
Mathematics 1425BC
Pottery 1375BC

Plan with some additions



Set 9 [t111-t114; 1225BC-1150BC] ; Currency
Spoiler :

This was mostly the end of the previous set. We started discussing at this point whether it should be feasible to settle 2 cities on Saladin's landmass to work the gold tiles over there. We spotted Isabella's culture over on the Ivory island but had no means to meet her yet. A small mistake of not opening borders with Saladin cost us some commerce. We had a lot of debate on whether or not to whip the GLH which was within 4 turns of completion... in the end we gambled and won by not whipping. Production of settlers was still left to Bombay, mainly via chopping.

Plan



pre-Set 10 [t114; 1150BC] ; OB with Saladin
Spoiler :
This was just a micro set, opening borders with Saladin and trying unsuccessfully to meet Izzy by land - to know where we stood on research.

Set 11 [t114-t126; 1150BC-850BC] ; Currency+CS -- GLH
Spoiler :

This is probably the set that catapulted us ahead of other teams in terms of research [remember, we evaluated that commerce was the limiting factor]. Despite having fewer cottages, a slower expansion prospect [due to our wonder spamming], every city we would settle would bring in instant commerce, courtesy of the GLH (see before&after F2 screenshots below). Thus our strategy involved opening borders with AIs as much as possible so we switched to No State Religion for some a long time.

We also settled the first of oversea cities, by the fish+gold near Saladin to guarantee each city a 2-commerce trade route (with more of them to come!). That city would prove very useful for 1) access to gold 2) trade routes (insta-profitable as you'll see) 3) great chance of having Saladin spread Hinduism to us 4) indirectly, it allowed us to peace-vassal Saladin later on. We kinda "gambled" by sending the settler unescorted (well, with a Fast Worker), hoping there would be no barbarians in the vicinity. With a workboat spawnbusting along the coast from Pataliputra, the chances of seeing barbs were close to 0.

In other news, we met Tokugawa and the Temple of Artemis was coming along, only 4 turns from completion.
We also settled a cottage city [Varanasi] directly ON the rice. Why: coastal (ok could have been somewhere else...), we were short on workers [saved 11 worker turns for farm+road] and the health would be useful, hard to irrigate the rice without wasting cottages on those juicy flood plains. 4 food for an un-irrigated rice +settling on flood plains = 6 food while settling on rice+ working flood plain = 6 food, but 1 more commerce.

After Currency, we set research on Civil Service to boost our mega-Delhi.

Techs:
Currency 950BC

Cities:
Varanasi 1125BC
Agra 875BC

Plan (there were some small additions but really minor so I'm leaving them out).

Before-GLH

Post-GLH



Set 12 [t126-t130; 850BC-750BC] ; CS -- ToA
Spoiler :

A short set again, this time to the completion (or failure) of the Temple of Artemis. This would give us the best possible clue on how to finish Civil Service with the failure gold we'd get (or with the gold from AIs would get as failure). We did manage to get the ToA which sped up the next GP and added research as well as commerce to our capital.

We settled the final blocking city by Zara (horse+fish+Incense) and started on 2 more settlers.

We finally met Isabella via wb (albeit I delayed the meeting by 1 turn with a wrong move) and open borders for further commerce income.
At this point we had a gold surplus of over +50 at 0% research.

City:
Calcutta 875BC

Plan



pre-Set 13 [t130; 750BC] ; CS -- beg 130 gold from Zara
Spoiler :
This is another micro set. The main issue being begging the large sum of gold Zara had accumulated from his failed attempt at ToA (130 gold).
For determining whether we would succeed in begging we took 2 approaches:
1- dingding's code digging
2- Tried it in the test game which was kept updated.

In the end it worked and we were able to research Civil Service 2~3 turns faster than otherwise. [we still did not have Alphabet and no AI had gotten it yet]

Set 14 [t130-t140; 750BC-500BC] ; CS+MC -- beg 50 gold from Justinian
Spoiler :

This set would be played until an AI finally had Alphabet. By our espionage against Zara Yaqob, it would be at most 12 turns, but ended up being only 10. We finished meeting the AIs (Mehmed was last) and found the fur island (in my report I mention the possibility of it being the case).

We had a lucky break here in popping !!!gems!!! on one of the grassland hills in Delhi. While not game-breaker, it did give us a helping hand with additional happiness and commerce to be multiplied in Delhi.

Less luckily, we got hit by a demand to cancel borders by Tokugawa. Not having Alphabet meant that we couldn't butter up to him before (besides gold gifting which would be very expensive) and so we wouldn't be able to open borders with him for a while longer, losing out on a good amount of commerce (comparable to the gems for the same time period).

Civil Service was completed during this time period. Afterwards we had debated on Aesthetics>Literature or Metal Casting>Aesthetics>Literature. We ended up with the latter as the saved hammers would be significant as well as the ability of whipping the forge into overflow towards The Great Library.

We settled the second overseas city by Saladin (crabs+gold) and had 3 more settlers being built during this set to finish settling our land [11 settled cities].

Techs:
Civil Service 575BC

City:
Lahore 650BC

Plan




pre-Set 15 [t140; 500BC] ; Alphabet trade
Spoiler :
Another mini-set to know where we stood against the AIs. This time we decided to trade Currency to Zara Yaqob for Alphabet as it would add trade routes (we had a few 1-gold trade routes still) and also accelerate their tech rate to hopefully be able to trade more with them.

Techs:
Alphabet 500BC (trade)

Set 16 [t140-t141; 500BC-485BC] ; MC -- IW+Mono trades
Spoiler :
Yet another very small set, to the end of the planned discussion in set 14. We started luring away to Zara Yaqob the barbarian galley that spawned to the north of the sugar island.

There was also another mini-set played here where we traded for some of the techs the AI had.

Techs:
Iron Working 485BC (trade)
Monotheism 485BC (trade)

Plan

Set here

Set 17 [t141-t146; 485BC-410BC] ; MC+Aesthetics+Lit -- 3rd GP -- Monarchy trade
Spoiler :

Due to getting hit by a Tokugawa demand, we revolted to his religion (Hinduism, which had been kindly spread to our gold cities by Saladin) in the hopes of bringing him up to Pleased - this is the reason for the 5 turns length, as we were hoping that he'd forget the demand (long shot). This was costly to us in a way as we lost out on the ability to run Confucianism and Organized Religion during this time which could have brought a lot of hammers... oh well. Commerce before hammers again.

We started planning out the construction of The Great Library in mostly 1 turn (via whips and chops) during this set as well as that of The Hanging Gardens to gain 11 population across the empire.

We had another GP born in Delhi, this time a Great Engineer (33%). After discussing, we agreed to settle him in Delhi to boost hammers and research. Looking back, this was certainly a good decision but probably not the best. Having 2 GEs to rush The United Nations would have allowed us to spawn more GPs and thus win faster by a few turns. A 800s Diplo victory would have looked even better but meh...

We settled 2 more cities, Madras (fish+Deer) and Bangalore (the tree clams spot, although it would only get 2 clams in our game).

Funny fact: at this point, we have 5 Fast Workers (a 6th in production) for our empire of 10 cities. The GLH was still the driving force behind our economy, despite the really good contribution by Delhi (roughly 50% of our total economy). Our last settler was in place but not settled as the save was uploaded right after the IBT.

Techs:
Metal Casting 470BC
Monarchy 455BC (trade)
Aesthetics 425BC

Cities:
Madras 470BC
Bangalore 470BC

Plan



Set 18 [t146-t156; 410BC-260BC] ; Lit+Paper -- TGL -- Hunting+Medi trades
Spoiler :

Another set with a lot happening. This was actually played out in 2 sessions (a 3-turns and then the rest) as there was a small micro mistake in the plan that cost us some hammers. Nonetheless, it did not delay The Great Library - no harm was done (we still love ya BIC).

As Tokugawa was not Pleased yet, we stayed in Hinduism for 5 more turns to trigger the religion +1, before going back to Confucianism to use Organized Religion. He became Annoyed afterwards and we were slightly worried about a DoW since our gold cities had no garrison. However after quickly scouting his cities it was clear he had no SoD in his eastern cities: DoW target = Justinian. (and he was the land target so already more probable)

We started putting in some hammers towards The Parthenon but would later change our minds as its window of use was becoming rather small (for the cost).

After Literature, we researched Calendar for The Mausoleum of Mausollos to use a few extended golden ages. Next was Paper with Education in mind.

Hyderabad was founded on the southern sugar to have access to one of the clams.

The globe was circumnavigated in 305BC by our exploring workboats.

Techs:
Literature 395BC
Hunting 335BC (trade)
Calendar 335BC
Meditation 305BC (trade)

City:
Hyderabad 410BC

Plan




pre-Set 19 [t156-t157; 260BC-245BC] ; Paper+Education -- Trade Maps
Spoiler :
A small micro set. Trading maps after Paper is done and spotting Tokugawa's SoD. While seemingly minor, this set revealed to us the location of all necessary resources to meet the SGOTM victory condition and we started making war plans right after this set [great hindsight by Duckweed to DoW Zara who'd bribe Izzy, a few posts later]

Techs:
Paper 260BC

Plan

Set 20 [t157-t163; 245BC-155BC] ; Education -- The Colossus -- 4th GP
Spoiler :

This set was played until the birth of our 4th GP, which thanks to The Great Library was a GS. He would be used [bulb went in the next set] to bulb Education where we lost a small amount of beakers (~50). We also decided to swap The Parthenon for The Colossus with the help of a whip and a chop. It is fairly cheap and helped some cities that were mostly working coastal tiles. While not a huge contribution, it was a cheap investment that paid for itself several times over. (see dingding's end game analysis).

Religious spreading was coming well in place, with Confucianism spread everywhere but in 3 cities... however we would decide to go Hindu to get Saladin's vote... that meant a lot of hammers to spread a second religion. Had we thought of peace-vassaling Saladin here, we would have saved a lot of hammers by staying in Confucianism and switching for 5 turns to get him Pleased and accept capitulation.

We also started drafting the plans behind our war ambitions before this set was completed. Duckweed was the architect behind the idea of DoW Zara, who would bribe Izzy in the war - anyway here's a summary of our war options.

At this stage, the GLH was worth 25% of our commerce. City infrastructure was typically: granary>lighthouse(if applicable)>forge>city specialization infra.
In international news, Tokugawa went to war against Justinian while Isabella captured the barbarian silk city in the north by Mehmed.

Plan



Set 21 [t163-t175; 155BC-25AD] ; Machinery+Philosophy -- HG
Spoiler :

Having 2 different goals at the same time is usually a problem. While we had 11 cities, we needed 6 of them to work on Universities and a number of the rest to work on an invasion force. There was also a number of cities that was not going to be able to contribute to either goals as they were either food poor or hammer poor [mainly the gold cities by Saladin].

Thankfully, having unlocked the Heroic Epic, its construction would mean that 1 city would be twice as efficient in troop building (Vijayanagara, our GLH city). There was also our work horse, Bombay which was whipped into the ground down to 2 population several times.

Unfortunately some things were said which created a small rift in the team prior to this set. It's something that happens to most teams (as my overview of other teams has shown me) and in a competitive game that lasts several months can happen. It's always hard to interpret the way something is said but that's the internet. I will not say more on this subject, other than it was sad. For a while we were a 4-player team with each of us having schedules that would take time away from testing etc.

In brighter news, we finished the Hanging Gardens for a whooping 11 population across the empire, which also boosted our score dramatically.

After bulbing Education we went for Machinery...

The military buildup officially begun during this set. Calcutta (horse+fish) would be whipping galleys to transport our troops, Bombay(horse+copper)+Vijayanagara(Heroic Epic)+Pataliputra(pig+fish ) would be whipping Macemen and some catapults in the coming sets.

We lazily went after a late Philosophy and got Taoism in Lahore - crab+gold. We'd try spreading Taoism into Delhi to get another Monastery going there.

Since we were planning war, I felt we needed a more accurate test game for testing and started over from 4000BC, with screenshots taken from the game. It can be found here.

Techs:
Education 155BC (1 bulb)
Machinery 50BC
Philosophy 10AD

Plan



pre-Set 22 [t175-t177; 25AD-55AD] ; PP -- Feudalism+Theology trades -- 5th GP
Spoiler :
Another short set until the completion of the 5th GP, another GS who we would use to bulb Printing Press.

Techs:
Theology 25AD (trade)
Feudalism 40AD (trade)

Plan

Set 23 [t177-t190; 55AD-250AD] ; PP+Construction+Music+Nationalism -- 6th GP -- Oxford University
Spoiler :
A rather complex set with a lot of whipping going on, including a 1-turn build of Oxford University in 205AD, courtesy of 1 whip and 3 chops.

After bulbing Printing Press, research went to Construction to build some 5-exp Catapults for the war. Music was also researched to within 1 turn of completion before moving on to Nationalism to start the Taj Mahal in Delhi. We kept an Engineer specialist running in Delhi hoping to pop a lucky GE for The UN.

As of war preparations, here is the most drafted plan we had going forward. I can't remember if we went with those exact numbers but it should be pretty close.
The goal was to get rid of Zara quickly, initiate war with Isabella but try to avoid a three-way fight with Mehmed. Why? Because Isabella would almost assuredly capitulate to Mehmed, dragging us in a very long war. So we had to keep Mehmed Pleased to allow begging some gold to ensure peace for 10-turns after the war would start.
Troops were separated in 2 contingents, the fleet troops to the SE of Aksum (within striking range of both Aksum and Gondar) and W of Lalibela, those would walk. We chose those 3 cities because they had food resources and were the oldest. Addis Ababa may have had more forests but it would require several land improvements and most likely infrastructure.

Techs:
Printing Press 55AD
Construction 85AD

Plan




The summary will continue in the next post... I've had to cut parts of the summary to avoid the 30,000 character limit.
 
SETS and SUMMARY

Set 24 [t190-t205; 250AD-475AD] ; Zara and Izzy war -- Music+Nationalism+Compass+Optics+Astronomy+Liberalism -- HBR trade -- 7th GP -- MoM -- First Golden Age
Spoiler :

The report provided by Duckweed is actually pretty complete so I won't say much here.

We completed the MoM in Delhi and launched our first Golden Age via the Music GA. We also got our GE to rush the UN from Delhi.

After the initial war plan in the previous set, we hit Cordoba (the island ivory city) and then Madrid before moving next to Barcelona. War was launched in 280AD and Isabella was bribed in the IBT. We created our first Great General which meant we needed less GPP for the victory conditions to be met. Aksum was a marvelous city to capture - I suppose that any team that had attempted to Axe rush Zara early on would have gotten a huge advantage and still be able to amass the needed resources via Izzy/Mehmed/peace.

Looking back, we probably should have let Aksum grow to its cap and then run a bunch of specialists there rather than whipping in infrastructure (or at the very most, library+university).

Techs:
Nationalism 295AD
Compass 310AD
Optics 340AD
Music 355AD
Horse Back Riding 445AD

Cities:
Aksum 295AD (captured)
Gondar 325AD (captured)
Lalibela 325AD (captured)
Cordoba 385AD (captured)
Madrid 445AD (captured)

Plan



pre-Set 25 [t205-t206; 475AD-490AD] ; Izzy war
Spoiler :

Yet another mini-set - not that they are bad, they're the same as stopping during a longer set imo. While Isabella was willing to capitulate, we decided to capture Barcelona anyway for the Dye, the capture gold and the GG exp points (as it turns out, we got our 2nd GG with 0 exp to spare so it was the right call). Our spy on barb island kept looking for the fur (as it turns out we would find it the next turn).

We had a lot of discussion on how to gather the UN votes, on how to set up our cities needing Buddhism spread etc... in the end we settled on keeping all cities, putting a fort on barb island and vassaling Mehmed to get his votes by force. Saladin would vote for us simply for running Hinduism (or more accurately as it turned out, as our peace-vassal).

Techs:
Archery 490AD (trade)

City:
Barcelona 490AD (captured)

Plan

Set 26 [t206-t214; 490AD-610AD] ; SM -- Taj Mahal -- 8th GP -- Second Golden Age
Spoiler :
Over two weeks went by between the previous set and this one... quite simply, we were busy and running long tests - this set was split in two because of its complexity (I think this was the most micro intense set of the game with a lot of troop shuffling going on). And we also discussed a lot on how to proceed ahead so that always takes more time :) One of the results of this discussion was on how to build the UN. We determined that growing a city to size 21 (20 with OR) would allow to 1-turn whip the UN into completion. As a result, GPP plans were abandoned in Pataliputra to allow it to grow to the desired size (21... which happened on the turn we discovered Mass Media!).

What was done:
-war preparation against Mehmed
This was more complicated than the previous 2 wars due to Mehmed's size, troop spamming and troop level: we were up against Knights. To answer those, we went with War Elephants and would later add in Airships to keep the fight really unfair!​
-GP generation
To accelerate the finish date, spawning Great Scientists to bulb through Physics-Electricity was required. Fortunately this was quite simple as Delhi took advantage of the wonders it had to do this job for us. We would use 4 GS on Physics+Electricity... roughly 10 turns of research.​
-Find and capture Fur
Simple enough... the spy found the fur and Maces+catapults went across the sea aboard Galleons (we upgraded 3 Galleys) to fight Archers and Axes.​
-Set up galley chain to move troops and Hindu missionaries
Most teams know and did this. Basically all this is is you put Galleys at 2 (or 3 if you circle the globe) tile intervals. Load units in the first boat, move that boat 2 tiles to the next galley. At that point, select the units that were loaded, and click the load button... they will be in the new galley, which has 2/3 movement points left... so we were able to move units 9 tiles per turn to prepare for invading Mehmed.​

The Taj Mahal was completed and gave us another 15 turns of Golden Age to help, well just about everything. Mostly GPP as we were not in Pacifism for a long time in this game due to our warring and need for other civics as a result.

Techs:
Astronomy 535AD
Drama 595AD (trade)

Plan



Set 27 [t214-t221; 610AD-715AD] ; Peace-Vassal Saladin -- SM+Physics -- 9th GP
Spoiler :

The end of the "mega-set". War preparations against Mehmed were coming to an end, with troops massing in around Barcelona... I'll leave the details for the next set which is when war occurred. We actually added a turn or two to this set to include the production of the next GP... a GS! The stage was set for a massive tech completion run of Physics-Electricity-Liberalism-Radio in the span of 3 turns!

One settler was whipped and sent on the far west side of the Saladin-Tokugawa-Justinian continent. Having 3 cities on a landmass is a prerequisite to being considered a land target, the thing we were lacking to peace-vassal Saladin. Madurai (founded on one of the 2 remaining free tiles on the landmass - it would later be gifted to Justinian) was a piece of junk but it allowed us to trade for Engineering and Guilds with Saladin as a result. Well worth it in my opinion even if some would disagree - plus it looks good on Paper ;)

Techs:
Scientific Method 625AD
Engineering 685AD (trade)
Physics 700AD (1 bulb)

Cities:
Devilsgate 610AD (captured)
Zhou 640AD (captured)

Plan



Set 28 [t221-t228; 715AD-820AD] ; Mehmed war -- Electricity+Liberalism+Radio+MM+trade Guilds
Spoiler :

I'm not sure what happened to the report I had prepared but I can't find it anymore :confused: The pictures are lost which is a major bummer. I might try to replay the turns sometime in the future but for now, this will have to do =\

The troop distribution is explained at the top of the plan. 12 Airships were positioned in Isabella cities closest to the action. On the first turn of war, both stacks moved next to their target city while Airships bombarded units to avoid retaliation. Roads were added as necessary for troops to be able to move accordingly.
The following turn, defenses were bombarded, Airships struck units and Maces cleaned up. Not a single Indian unit was lost during this war. As a result, Mehmed was ready to capitulate after 2 turns of war. To accelerate Mehmed's capitulation, technologies that grant soldier points were gifted across the globe (although I kept Astronomy from several civs) to raise the average power - this was done so that Mehmed's power didn't have to be lowered as much as it would have to had we not gifted those techs.

On the research side, Electricity was triple-bulbed, leading in a 1-turn research time. Mass Media required 5 turns of research if my memory serves right. With the second birthed GG from the Mehmed war, we were almost ready to welcome Eldine as the UN was GE rushed+whipped in 1 turn from size 21 Pataliputra (which became size 21 the very turn Mass Media was completed).

All that remained after this set was to spread Hinduism to the new Mehmed cities, spawn 2 more GPs (Including the one from Economics) and move the final great persons on the fur while awaiting the UN vote for Diplomatic Victory.

Techs:
Guilds 715AD (trade)
Electricity 715AD (3 bulbs)
Liberalism 730AD
Radio 745AD (Liberalism)
Mass Media 805AD
Banking 820AD (trade)

Cities:
Ankara 805AD (captured)
Gaziantep 805AD (captured)

Plan



Set 29 [t228-t238; 820AD-930AD] ; Economics+DR+Gunpowder+trade Banking -- UN -- 10th GP -- UN Victory
Spoiler :
This report was rather complete and nothing much happened really. All cities but Delhi [set on GPP] were set on growth, workers automated... waiting for the UN vote. It is the end of the previous set so the plan is the same.

Diplomatic Victory was achieved on t238, 930AD as tests were predicting. We joked a little bit about having 6 GPs and 6 warriors on the Fur tile for a few posts but decided to stick to the victory conditions of 4/4.

Techs:
Economics 835AD
Divine Right 890AD
Gunpowder 920AD




Information
Early Wonders dates
Zara Yaqob
Justinian
Saladin
Tokugawa
Isabella
Mehmed
Pop counts as of 475AD
Post-game analysis, by dingding and continued here (these are great reads to see the cost vs benefit)
Further analysis by dingding also here. (these are great reads to see the cost vs benefit)


A few notes of etiquette:

1. Active participation -- Your contribution to every set is important, even if it's a 'I agree'. Although everyone might have real life issues sometimes, it's courteous to notify the team of you absence.

2. Plan of playing -- The spirit of SG is to play the game following the consensus of the team decision. Therefore the player who is UP should post a clear plan for discussion. Guidelines have been posted for the contents of your plan in the next post. It might be that the team decides to head in a direction you were opposed to, it does not mean you are wrong but rather that the team believes the odds of winning are more likely with the decided approach.

3. Timing -- In the pre-thread we agreed to use the following as upper bounds for discussing, planning and playing the set. Since the game cannot last forever, it is important to respect these in order not to be rushed to finish the game later on.
-24 hours for 'got it' [0-24] - Make sure you can open the save before saying 'got it'.
-48 hours for discussion [0-48]
-24/48 hours to play [48-72/96]
Please keep in mind those are upper bounds, meaning if a consensus is reached before the time is fully elapsed, the set can proceed ahead.
Once again it would be greatly appreciated if you can warn the team, either in this thread or via pm, of your absences so that we do not have to wait for a consensus or skipping. You will be skipped if you cannot meet the time frame.

3a. Please include a report when you submit the save. You may submit your report later but it would be preferable to have it before the discussion on the next set starts.

4. Do not automate workers without first discussing with your team.

5. Do not use city governors without first discussing with your team. Or at least if you do, check cities every turn and remove the governor at the end of your round.

6. Do not leave units on goto orders that extend beyond your set of turns. If for some reason this happens, then be sure to inform your team as to what the unit(s) is/are going.

7. Finish all your turns and upload the game saved at the END of the last turn.

8. Respect your team mates, and demand their respect. Take care of your writing style, accept that people whose first language is not English will use English in a different way than you are used to. Disagree by all means, but don't make it personal, and don't take it personally.

9. SG's are team games. Be a good team member. Post your ideas, argue your corner and encourage and praise your team mates. Don't be afraid to post in your game thread. That is what it's for.

10. Have fun and QUACK!!!

What your plan should cover:

1. Technologies
  • What techs are you aiming for? (One, a beeline ex. Literature, part-research for trading)
  • What trades will you attempt with who and when? (When to sell for gold ex. first opportunity or wait for more, specify the leader(s), waiting for a wonder to finish so the AI get failure gold)
  • Are we planning a Great Person bulb?

2. Dealing with AIs
  • Resource trade negotiations
  • Espionage assignment
  • Open borders (cancel or allow)
  • AI demands (resources, cancel trades, who do we send packing or not, technologies, war, religions, civics)

3. City placement - mostly in the beginning
  • Where are you planning on sending a settler?
  • Are you sending a worker along?
  • Is the land fogbusted/do we have an escort?
  • Initial city builds (Monument/Granary etc...)
  • Tile improvements around this city(food, hammers, commerce)

4. General micro
  • Special tile assignations (starve city for specialists, switch to growth etc.)
  • Tile swapping with other cities
  • Whips
  • Build order (infrastructure/military/settlers/workers/wealth/science)
  • Dealing with happy/health caps
  • Worker improvements and moves

5. Civics and Religion
  • Are you planning on civic switches/do we need to acquire the techs? (Caste for border pops, slavery for prod...)
  • Are we expecting a religion change?

6.War - if applicable
  • Refuse/accept AI war demands
  • Bribing civs to declare war or for stopping war
  • War plan (who, how many units and how to acquire them , which cities to strike, scouting prior to DoW,...)

7. Bigger picture
  • Gifts (city, gold, techs,...)
  • What AI do we try to please
  • Goals for the future
  • Diplo manipulation
  • Extras

To facilitate and clarify plans, you can copy the draft in the spoiler below and fill in the blanks.
Spoiler :

[b]1. Technologies[/b]


[b]2. Dealing with AIs[/b]


[b]3. City placement - mostly in the beginning[/b]


[b]4. General micro[/b]


[b]5. Civics and Religion[/b]


[b]6.War - if applicable[/b]


[b]7. Bigger picture[/b]


~~~~

How your set should go:
  • Play according to the plan
  • If you have to adapt, do so!
  • You can add markers in game during and at the end of your set. It's a lot easier on team members to figure where units are going.
  • If something unexpected comes up, you can (and possibly should) stop and make a short report to the team so we can decide how to move ahead

~~~~

What your set report should cover:
  • WHEOOHRN alerts and possible/likely targets
  • GGs in distant lands and Great Engineers
  • When to renegotiate trades
  • What you were planning for the future
  • How the plan worked out/didn't
  • Anything unexpected

~~~~

Below lies some of the posts I used to draft the plan.
Spoiler :
Duckweed said:
1. tech path
2. civic change
3. city placement
4. diplomatic decision -- especially tech trade, joining the war
5. war plan -- target, force composition, march route.
6. ? feel free to add more.

If there are other opinions than your plan, please include your reasons behind. I'll call a vote when there's major and strong divergence, of course the player has the final decision when there's a tie.
Click to expand...

dingding said:
We can discuss the tech paths, city positions and unit building, but the most important as I see it is the diplo strategy. This game underlies the relationship no matter whether we want to win a diplo victory or a culture one. (well the UN victory is apparently the best choice of the game cause it's earlier than a culture one)

OB, Tech trade, city gifts, EP targets... Need to be discussed. And we can't predict what kind of arrogant demands AIs may demand so we should have the same understanding which AI should be pleased and which one are to be ignored for the moment.

It's an Epic game. It's about 15 turns a tech so 15-20 turns a set is nice. No need to fix a strict rule about this. I think our members know when to stop to discuss.


I notice that we are in quite different time zones. For example kossin is in Canada and I'm in France, there is 5-9 hours of difference. There can be in average 2 rounds of discussion in 48 hours (suppose we are free in the evening), but sometimes actually 1.5 rounds. I think 72h to finish (2 rounds of discussion + play) is good and every one can of course try to submit in 48h.
Click to expand...

kossin said:
I'd recommend the basic SG rules (no unit moves beyond your set, no city governor, etc.)


To add to what dingding said:
-general worker moves
-builds/whips
-how to treat with each leader (we'll have to refuse 'We ask for your assistance in fighting ..." every time most likely for example). This will probably be determined early on however.
-special city citizen assignation (:gp: production for instance)

We can either be very strict about this (plan down every single move) or just make 'general' plans.

Turn set length: well, this depends on a few things. 15 turns sounds right early on (10*1.5) but we know so little about the map that I'd wait before making this final. Sets can be shortened later on when there are many units to move


24hours for 'got it' is good.
I'd suggest the player finishing the round post a 'summary' of things to be done, and the general direction he wanted things to go during his set. This can be done in a post right after the report, or at the end of the report. I'd like to leave around 48 hours for discussion from where the save is submitted. From the time the 'plan' is agreed upon, it depends on how much time the player has. 24 hours could work but I would make this max 48 hours.
So to recapitulate...
-24 hours for 'got it' (hopefully we don't have to skip too often) [0-24] Make sure you can open the save before saying 'got it'.
-48 hours for discussion [0-48]
-24/48 hours to play [48-72/96]
Click to expand...

Bugg123 said:
Overall diplo needs to be adressed so everyone knows what to do with demands and such.
As far as detail in planning, I think that depends on circumstances. Is there anything in particular we've decided to do that needs something to be done in one predefined way (timing of tiles worked, just enough workerturns available to get something accomplished on time etc..)
I think it also could depend on what the team-member picking up the save feels he wants or needs in there to be able to get the turnset done the way the team has decided.

Also.. in order for turnset summaries to be about equally informative.. is there some rules down to how reporting events that has happened in a turnset should be done?
Click to expand...

BornInCantaloup said:
Hi !

I would say that the more detailed a plan is, the easier it is to express (dis)agreement. Say... to "polish" it. However, surely the "most detailed" doesn't mean the same thing for me and, say, Kossin. For my part, I plan to mimic your ways.
I also believe that some discussions should be continuous (not specific to a play sequence) : territorial expansion, be it peaceful or military, long term tech objectives & diplo objectives. Also to include : any specific "trick" : wonders, city gifts, GP bulbs/settling, maybe some queue management.
Balance between Expansion / Military / Infrastructure should be adressed in the plans. Kossin talks about general worker moves and it seems right to me.

What about trade opportunities ? Where do they fit ?
Click to expand...

Duckweed said:
There are a few things that SGOTM is different from common SG.

Regarding the content of plan, I agree with what dingding and kossin proposed. Details of worker move and city build in early stage is advisable, in later stage, that would be too tedious, especially the worker move. I think we still should mention the big direction, for instance, workers will change the mined hill tiles in capital to windmills and cities ??? will start university and whip it so that capital can start OU in turn ???.
Click to expand...
 
Rule Clarifications:
DynamicSpirit said:
Diplomatic victory specifically means a UN victory. AP victories are not permitted in this competition.
Click to expand...

Erkon said:
"You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world."

It means on the fur.

If I remember correct, there's a bug that let you trade for obsolete resources that are obsolete for you but not the opponent. This will not suffice. Don't learn Industrialism. Don't make Ivory obsolete.
Click to expand...

Erkon said:
There are no requirements on sharing religions.
Click to expand...

DynamicSpirit said:
If an AI declares war on you, then Eldine will recognize that it was not your decision, and you must take whatever action is required to protect yourself. However, it is clear to Eldine that there would be a point where you have captured enough cities that the AI in question is no longer a threat to you. If you eliminate the AI altogether, then she will know that you have viciously overreacted and are not worthy worshippers.

If you reduce the AI to one single city, then that's fine. The requirement is that the AI is still alive at the end of the game.
Click to expand...

DynamicSpirit said:
In Eldine's eyes, the Barbarians are vermin. Do with them as you please.
Click to expand...

Erkon said:
You can have any combination including multiple great people (two, three or four of the same)

EDIT: Yes, Great Generals are fine. They will of course be sacrificed in Eldine's honor immediately to please her.

The rules for colonies will be published any day. Please be patient.
Click to expand...

DynamicSpirit said:
In order to count as 'winning' this SGOTM, you must win a cultural or diplomatic (UN) victory.

The savegame file that you are playing with will allow you to win all victory types, but that is merely so that if any team is silly enough to win by some other means, but it won't count as a victory for the SGOTM if you do.
Click to expand...

DynamicSpirit said:
When you win the game, you select the option to continue playing, which takes you to the turn immediately after you have won. You may submit your final winning save at any time during this turn, it does not have to be at the beginning of the turn. However, you must submit during that turn - DO NOT allow the game to proceed to any subsequent turn before submitting, as that'll risk disqualifying your victory.
Click to expand...
 
Allright!

Wow does this game have a lot of requirements to it. At first glance it looks like a small minefield, but not sure it really is all that bad.

Just a few thoughts on the conditions:

Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.

AI Alive: Early exploration is high priority. Would be stupid to lose the game because some warmonger eliminates someone just for kicks in the BCs...
State Religion: I suppose this is more a hassle than anything else. Spies (right?) or trades to fix.

All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.

So no Industrialism/Plastics. Would trading for ivory/fur if we had Ind/Pl make it available to us even if it's obsolete? Can't remember... Not that it matters much, I guess.. not on our techpath, really... Kossin can still have his Cavs + bombers :)

You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)
The 4 GP (btw: a non-assigned GG counts as a GP) really isn't much of an issue, I think. 4 Warriors could be. A city could be settled ON Bronze prior to BW = game lost.
Not sure how you'd handle this. Either delay BW 'till we have enough warriors (How much is enough?), or risk it. I'm thinking the map is probably not designed with BW very close to starting position (around initial BFC), but don't know.
Also, warriors have to remain the basic unit (Can't build warriors and upgrade them to other units later)

You are running a state religion which has been spread to every one of your cities.

Shouldn't be an issue.

No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

Limits options a lot. Like if we need to attack an AI with a vassal lategame, we can't have attacked anyone early. No worker steals. What about the only fur? Maybe we have to go to war to secure it?
Does anyone have experience in getting the AI to go after you? :)

I was under the impressions that Religious Vic was possible (It's listed as diplomatic), but that is not the case. So either UN or Culture.
 
I did create a testgame if anyone's interested, mirroring the start-location.

The way the game plays out will depend a lot on what actual AIs in our game will be, so it may not be all that relevant. Seems like a decent mix in the testgame, though.

Testgame not made with BUFFY. Do not put the testgame anywhere near where you'd have the actual SGOTM. (Download and rename if you have to). There could be issues with BUFFY + savegamenaming (at least that's what they claim for BOTMs, not that I've really had issues).
 

Attachments

Final spam :)

I will be unavailable friday (23rd) through sunday, but will be back on monday (26th)
 
checking in. I have schoolwork and finals coming up, but I will try to keep up. Please PM me if I fall behind as I am sure to find it.
 
Hey ! So we've got our own thread !

I pretty much agree with you, Bugg. Here are my remarks :

Bugg123 said:
A city could be settled ON Bronze prior to BW = game lost.
Not sure how you'd handle this. Either delay BW 'till we have enough warriors (How much is enough?), or risk it. I'm thinking the map is probably not designed with BW very close to starting position (around initial BFC), but don't know.
Also, warriors have to remain the basic unit (Can't build warriors and upgrade them to other units later)
Click to expand...
In theory, you're right. Not only settling could be a problem, but also a mine connected to our trade network (road/river).
In practice, I don't think we need to bother about warriors going obsolete.

--> Emperor level : Warriors do fine against barbarians and even other AIs (rush excluded).
--> We would need Hunting to obsolete the warriors... and I don't think we'll want hunting early.
--> I actually would put BW pretty HIGH on our priorities. Without exploring, Going Agriculture --> BW would seem sensible to me.

Bugg123 said:
No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

Limits options a lot. Like if we need to attack an AI with a vassal lategame, we can't have attacked anyone early. No worker steals. What about the only fur? Maybe we have to go to war to secure it?
Does anyone have experience in getting the AI to go after you? :)
Click to expand...
I find this one very tricky as well.
Say we go for Diplo and some "allied" AI asks us to enter a war... We should accept if we want it to vote for us... We need to plan very carefully, here.
I think the first moral step is to exclude a rush if we're not absolutely boxed in.

Being DoWed would be much easier to manage, I agree.
--> Different state religion and little army help a lot in that respect. If we can get some Catapults and strategic resources, we should do fine.



@ Emperor difficulty :
I know most of you beat Deity and have fun with Immortal on holidays... I assume you have only fractured remnants of memories from the times you struggled against Emperor.
Emperor is the level I usually play, so let me warn you : AIs don't tech super fast !!
--> Major consequence n°1 : 600BC is pretty much the soonest the AIs will tech Alphabet and, depending on the AIs' preferences, it can be so close to 1AD it would frighten you. So if we want an early Alphabet, we'll need to tech it ourselves.
Same goes for Monarchy, which I consider to be the alternative as the 1st classical tech. Aesthetics is much less useful than on higher levels.
--> Major consequence n°2 : We're allowed to build wonders if we want to ! Say... the Oracle, the Great Lighthouse/Library, these things :goodjob:


@ Starting position :
I think that settling in place is reasonable.
We can move the warrior first, yup. Not convinced it would reveal anything useful, though. Settling anywhere north or west would have obvious inconvenients (lose 1 corn or fresh water, add plains tiles in the BFC, etc.).
1SE is an attractive spot for the production bonus but it is a big gamble. The warrior doesn't allow to see the relevant tiles. We could end up lacking hills (and settling on Bronze ?) while getting a mountain/ocean tile in the BFC...

So... I think I'd settle first and move the warrior along the river, either south (there seems to be some coast SW of the corn) or east.

As said above, planning Agriculture --> Bronze working would have my preference for now. I don't see the need for AH/TW, yet.
@ BW : No early wars probably means we should prepare for a REx opening.
 
Bugg123 said:
Allright!
Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.

AI Alive: Early exploration is high priority. Would be stupid to lose the game because some warmonger eliminates someone just for kicks in the BCs...
State Religion: I suppose this is more a hassle than anything else. Spies (right?) or trades to fix.

All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.

So no Industrialism/Plastics. Would trading for ivory/fur if we had Ind/Pl make it available to us even if it's obsolete? Can't remember... Not that it matters much, I guess.. not on our techpath, really... Kossin can still have his Cavs + bombers :)

You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)
The 4 GP (btw: a non-assigned GG counts as a GP) really isn't much of an issue, I think. 4 Warriors could be. A city could be settled ON Bronze prior to BW = game lost.
Not sure how you'd handle this. Either delay BW 'till we have enough warriors (How much is enough?), or risk it.

No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

Limits options a lot. Like if we need to attack an AI with a vassal lategame, we can't have attacked anyone early. No worker steals. What about the only fur? Maybe we have to go to war to secure it?
Does anyone have experience in getting the AI to go after you? :)

I was under the impressions that Religious Vic was possible (It's listed as diplomatic), but that is not the case. So either UN or Culture.
Click to expand...

On early expansion, I agree. Being Gandhi, I also think Oracle>CoL will give us a leg up to start.

Can't trade for obsolete resources anymore, which means no Industrialism (Marines,Tanks) or Plastics.
Basically that blocks:
Industrialism, Plastic, Laser, Stealth, Fiber Optics, Fusion, Computers, Robotics, Future Tech

It should be doable to build Warriors until we hit Rifling, from any city not connected on the network (pillage roads) so I'm not worried here.

We can still convince the AI to DoW us however. It's tricky though as that usually means you don't have that much power to take them out. Gotta be careful of AP resolutions too.

Either Culture or UN only. Culture is probably much faster but... my gut feeling is the only Fur is intercontinental and possibly protected by something very unfair (either big AI or barbarians with Mech Infantry?). If this is the case, then it might just be that UN is easier to achieve as we'd have to get a lot of techs to secure it.

Cavs+Bombers should be able to deal with whatever Emperor AIs can send our way ;)
 
Check in. I'm abroad, so briefly:

About Victory condition:

If GG counts, a culture victory is probably faster than an UN one, and obviously easier to control. Let's just try to grab some wonders and religions. Oracle=>CoL will be useful. This cap reminds me of my Gandhi game. I think we can easily tech like crazy if we choose to play like that, which will certainly help us to win the game earlier.

About Expansion:

A REX will be good. Considering the victory conditions, two tips are advisable:
1. make the first and second city big. (for cul)
2. build as many cities as possible. (for cul and UN)
 
The resource requirement and 2 DOWs only together let me smell something conspiratorial from map designers. If Eldine is peaceful, why would he allow 2 DOWs. I highly suspect that we need 2 DOWs to gather those resources. Hence we could not afford to rush before we know how to secure those resources. I think diplomatic victory is probably a better way to go with war involved.

BTW, I'd like to take the opening if you don't mind as I'm a little busy next month.
 
Sounds good Duckweed. We can draft a roster according to people's availability early on which can be altered as time goes by.

Any special roster requests?
 
In space or PH?
Tech goes Agri->BW
capital builds Worker->Warrior
Will post more detailed plan after getting the save.

Suggestions for opening?:wavey:
 
Normally I'd be suspicious of the warrior tile where there is no forest but since this is a doctored map, it might not mean anything.

Looking at screenshot we can see:


Which would favor settling in place imo. This means we're down south so there'll be barbs to deal with. It's a bit hard to see only from the screenshot but I only see 2 hills. The tundra can always be a trap however and there could be silver on it for all I know.

We can move the warrior after settling, probably going northeast to follow the river.

Worker>Warrior is fine. It takes 23 turns to build a worker so if you only play 15 all that is to do is explore.

Agree with Ag>BW, with this many forests and Fast Workers, we can accelerate our expansion quite a bit.

I'll reanalyze the fog when the save is available.
 
space or PH: Settle in place or on Plains Hill

Advantages of plains hill:
-worker takes 18 turns rather than 23 (gain 5 turns)
-first settler out ~3 turns earlier
-warriors out faster

Disadvantages of plains hill:
-lose 1 turn moving
-gain tundra hill (possibly more) = crappier capital long-term
-might lose strategic resource in BFC
-perhaps fewer forests
-no guarantee for extra hills
-lose 1 turn while moving from 1 corn to the other to improve (SIP burns a forest that allows the move)
-lose 8 commerce compared to in place (no 3 yield with 1 commerce in first culture ring)

I'll play a few openings with the test game to get a feel for it.
 
PH: can whip the first settler on turn 41 (26 overflow), 2 warriors built, 1 forest chopped, no worker downtime (BW finishes as second corn is irrigated) BW:3150BC

SIP: can whip first settler on t45 (21 overflow), 1 warrior built 7 hammers towards second, no worker downtime either but have 1 plains hill that can be mined BW:3125BC
Earlier growth gains back the lost commerce.

PH comes out ahead slightly initially as a result from accelerated worker, but it will likely be weaker later in the game. It can draw as much as 7 tundra tiles which sucks, but could also gain 1 special, can't say.

Is 4 turns of production and 1 turn of research going to make up for the possibly weaker capital? We can always turn it into a GP farm, it already has 2 irrigated corns.
 
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