SAM-03 Sheaves and Mizzens (A tale of the Sea)

In SAM-02 we played a Terra map and experienced some fun with the privateer unit. We also were close to fighting a modern era war but opted to take a UN victory to save time and not slog through what would have been some long battles. Here is what we’ve decided to do for SAM-03:

Leader: Random (with the exception of not playing any leader with the Creative trait)
Map Type: Tectonics-Mediterranean
Level: Emperor
Version: 3.19

Goals:

1. To hustle to Chemistry to utilize privateers
2. No DoW from us until the Modern Era. This means we can defend ourselves and take an opponent’s cities but only after being declared upon.

Three starts to chose from:

Start A featuring:



Start A



Start B with this leader:



Starting locale:



Start C's Leader:



Location:



The winner is Pacal! Start attached. I re-arranged the roster order as well. Glare, you are up.

Roster:

Glare Seethe
Whosit
Mighty Dwaarf
Norvin Green
White Dragon
Gooblah

Ok, boys and girls. Let's hear some ideas. I had mentioned in a different SG the thought of having to move your capital for every x # of cities or turns etc. We also all seemed to enjoy the privateers. Once we get some more ideas we can look for some more players and post some starts.

I'm in for SAM-03 (will you actually be able to get the title changed?). I don't think I'm crazy about moving the capital 'cuz it seems like a logistics pain and that means at least one city will be spending its time building a palace at any given point in the game. I could go for more Privateer action, or try to focus on late game warfare which we missed out on in SAM-02.

Actually, I think that we could do both. We could restrict ourselves from conducting offensive warfare until a certain point on the tech tree (maybe Modern Age) but Privateers are technically exempt from that, so we could also play with those during our climb. We'd hurry to Chemistry and then start harassing everyone. An archipelago map would be best, but anything else with a fair amount of water could work. If we pull it off right, we might even be able to slow down our rivals' tech pace by blockading water tiles and cutting off trade routes.

As for which leader to use . . . We've done Staling and Mao, they had the whole "communist" thing going. Dunno who else would quite fit that, but Japan, at least, is also a Red civilization. Though I wonder if it's been too short a time since aCK-2 for anyone to play Japan again. Or we could just let the RNG randomly assign our fate, as we've been doing so far. I'm cool with that.

This may be worth reading: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/privateers.php

Signing in.

Most of my game ideas revolve around extreme climate settings. Like this:



Planet Generator script, Extremely Cold, Extremely Wet (i.e. lots of trees), Extreme Peaks. It's brutal. There are barely any resources at all and aside from starting locations every single tile is either water or ice, and most of them are forested.

The other one I had was an extreme desert map, although I haven't managed to find the right script for it yet. Everything I tried either had too much jungle or too many floodplains. I want miles and miles of desert tiles, with maybe an oasis somewhere in the middle.

Thing is, I'm not actually sure how much fun these maps would be, as there's no variation in tiles and very few resources. But they are definitely something different.

Alternative weird maps: Rainforest, which has miles and miles of jungle. Or Highlands, with maximum number of peaks and large lakes/seas. It looks like this:



It actually looks like a lot of fun to me. All those peaks make for natural chokepoints and the terrain is just interesting in general.

I could totally go for Whosit's suggestion of a late-game modern war showcase, we did kind of cop out in SAM-02. What I just posted in the other thread is similar to Whosit's suggestion: Archipelago map, no declarations until the modern era. With small, scattered islands most of the fighting can be done by air/sea and the small amount of land would help prevent late-game slowdowns and tedious unit/city management. Plus it could tie into the privateers idea, as Whosit said.

As for leader, I am always in favor of a random selection, with the stipulation that a Creative leader is an automatic reroll. They just make it too easy.

I agree we did kind of cop-out of modern warfare in SAM-02, but the slow-down was killer. Less land would help, as you noted Glare, but maybe even a small map (standard could work, too). It probably didn't help that Terra maps are simply larger for any given map size than most other scripts.

If you want to run an iceland map, or if you find a good desert generator, that might be interesting for its own SG, or just as a SP (it really does just look too brutal for anything but a curiosity game). Highlands looks fun, and I remember reading a report or two on an older GOTM that featured Highland terrain. We could easily have similar warfare restrictions there, but we'd probably miss out on the Privateer action.

The extreme cold map looks like no fun at all so think we should count that out, not sure we even make it too modern era!!!

If we are looking for modern war I think we need to cut down the land size, standard with high seas should be biggest we go for. Modern war whilst tactily intrigueing relies on patience and commitment due to the large number of units to control and micro manage.

Ok, so you posted that means your playing (in my book). Here's what I was thinking as far as maps. If we go for the whole naval/high seas/privateer scenario (which I like) that we generate a few maps and let one of our buddies PICK the map for us. The only other thought I have with a more watery map is that we talk about restricting ourselves from building the GLH. In the few games like this that I've played it seems to really tilt the game in our favor. We might want to consider selecting opponents that do well on these maps too. I'm thinking Hannibal, Joao, Ragnar to name a few. Let me know what you think.

Whosit said:

I'm in for SAM-03 (will you actually be able to get the title changed?).

Click to expand...

Yes, I think so. If you go into your original post and hit edit and the go to "Go Advanced" (or something like that) it looked as if I'd be able to edit it.

Norvin_Green said:

The only other thought I have with a more watery map is that we talk about restricting ourselves from building the GLH. In the few games like this that I've played it seems to really tilt the game in our favor. We might want to consider selecting opponents that do well on these maps too. I'm thinking Hannibal, Joao, Ragnar to name a few. Let me know what you think.

Click to expand...

I think even the ones tailored for water maps would probably do terribly... I don't really mind either way, but those leaders are definitely the usual suspects for water maps and I don't think we should necessarily pick them, you see them in a lot of Archipelago games already.

Maybe we can find a script that puts us and maybe two AIs in an archipelago hemisphere and the other AIs in a pangea hemisphere. Or continents, whatever. That would mean that even with the GLH we'd still theoretically be at a disadvantage as the AIs are not crippled by the water map. Only question is whether they'd have enough land to actually be competitive since we are trying to keep it playable until the modern era, after all...

Glare Seethe said:

Maybe we can find a script that puts us and maybe two AIs in an archipelago hemisphere and the other AIs in a pangea hemisphere. Or continents, whatever. That would mean that even with the GLH we'd still theoretically be at a disadvantage as the AIs are not crippled by the water map. Only question is whether they'd have enough land to actually be competitive since we are trying to keep it playable until the modern era, after all...

Click to expand...

That's why I was hoping we could get someone to look at the game in worldbuilder to see that the AI's have decent sites and enough land. Our map-checker could even add in some land if needed.

I'll check out all the map scripts again, but other possibilities would be the Central Sea (privateers wouldn't be quite as effective, but plenty of land for AI), Big and Small, I think? That's quasi island, right? Maybe another or two, but that's just off the top of my head.

Whosit said:

I'll check out all the map scripts again, but other possibilities would be the Central Sea (privateers wouldn't be quite as effective, but plenty of land for AI), Big and Small, I think? That's quasi island, right? Maybe another or two, but that's just off the top of my head.

Click to expand...

Inland Sea has more land than sea so that's not so good for us, but Big & Small might work. I'll also run some scripts and see what we can come up with that looks fun.

So we are officially decided at least on the rules/general settings, right? Water map, Chemistry/privateers beeline, no DoWs until modern era?

This is a test. It is only a test. DO NOT BE ALARMED!
I meant don't be alarmed by my poor picture editing.
Anyway, do any of these various map scripts seem to fit the bill?
I like 5, 6 and 7. Which style do you think will work best for the AI?

Lurker commentary:

One other script you could take a look at is Tectonics Mediterranean. Lots of coastal cities that are really one big continent, with a fair amount of islands in the middle. I guess you wouldn't be able to cut off most trade routes with privateers, but it's sort of like a more water-heavy inland sea.

Thanks for the suggestion. All of the above maps are different maps with varied settings so once I get some input on which ones you guys like I might generate a few with the same settings to ensure it is the type of map we are looking for.

I think I also like 5,6,7 the best, as they look the most natural. 7 is probably my favorite.

I too like 7 best. How will the AI handle it?

My guess is badly. :\

Do you think that by playing at immortal would help?

How about: Big & Small, Massive Continents, Islands size normal, Islands Region Separate.

This creates a large continent on one side of the map and an archipelago on the other, with one civ starting on the archipelago and everyone else on the continent (as far as I can tell from limited testing just now). Someone would have to go into the worldbuilder and if we don't start in the archipelago, switch us with the AI that does.