SGOTM7 - Team Wacken

SGOTM7 - Team Wacken

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Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Ottomans
World size - 80 wide by 80 high. (Small)
Difficulty - Deity
Landform - Archepelago
Barbarians - Roaming

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game. The SGOTM Reference thread contains all the files and links you need to install the small mod for PTW/C3C and rather larger mod for vanilla. There are test saves too so you can check your installation.

The GOTM Reference Thread.
SGOTM Reference Thread.
Upload Save to Server
Download Save from Server


This Months' sponsored variant is Always War Deity (AWD) the rules for which are as follows.

1. You must declare war on each Civilisation by the end of the turn you make that contact.
2. You must remain at war with each Civilisation until the end of the game, or until that Civilisation is destroyed.
3. You may trade with a Civilisation on the turn you make contact and before declaring war, but you may not establish any embassies.
4. No turn based (gpt) deals are permitted.
5. You must win by Domination.

Note: PTW and Vanilla players are not permitted to leader rush Great Wonders Before the year 1000BC for this game.

Hi there people,
Let the spamming begin !

Howdy, howdy, howdy.

I've never played always war, just a heads up for all you SID level people on this team.

Hi guys,
Roster? We are AFAIK 3 Europeans and 3 east coasters. This makes it easy to take advantage of time zones.

Settle in place? or 1 SW, we lose the oyster but will keep everything else of importance, river/coastal location? Do we know the number of AI's?

With AW we should really go easy on exploration. No need to discover everything in the first few turns.

Good to see you all fellows!!
Looks like we have a good team here.
Checking in...
and ready for some
so....
where do we start?????
some discussion perhaps on how to play early moves.
Since we are playing islands and M-B said at some point that this game is easier that average AWD I reckon we are alone on that island and iron or/and horses should be available nearby. Just a guess... Early exploration is a must.

Grahamian is away for 1 week:
==================================================
"Hi ,
I will be out of town till Sunday, May 22nd, sippin' margaritas on Isla Mujeres while attending my oldest sister's wedding . Please consider this my "check-in" for the game, but skip me till then and put me at the end of the roster.
Looking forward to some rough-n-tumble when I get back
later,
grahamiam"
========================================================

We shouldn't rush this game, i always prefer some discussion between the turn sets, so i don't think the timezones are really important.
I prefer to discuss things thoroughly, make no mistakes and win this sgotm


The save is not yet available for download unfortunately. The is a very small chance this water is a lake ? In that case it would be a 4 turn factory here.


Since MB doesn't want to make it very hard and he doesn't want people to lose in 20 turns, i do think it is save to open the game like a normal game, focussing on growth.

The city should be a 6 turn settler factory with the sheep. Depending on the size we let it grow, it will be able to make some military units as well in the 6 turn cycle. (10 s @ size 6)
With the tiny chance of that water being a lake and the oisters making it a 4 turn settler factory.


Moving SW does give us a chance of getting another food bonus making it a 4 turn factory. Settling in place gives us the the advantage of the sheep immeadiately instead of in 10 turns. I'd probably calculate both situations in an excel sheet and see what difference it will make to have the sheep later before deciding if its worth the chance.


Maybe offa feels like doing these calculations with his excel tool, or should i do them?


I think we should only explore our immeadiate surroundings. Depending on the place on the map, we can make a better prediction if we are gonna be alone on an island. If so, we could explore the whole island.
I think we should explore, but be carefull doing so. Not exploring could give nasty suprises from nearby AI, exploring too far only gets is into more wars than needed.

WackenOpenAir said:

We shouldn't rush this game, i always prefer some discussion between the turn sets, so i don't think the timezones are really important.
I prefer to discuss things thoroughly, make no mistakes and win this sgotm

Click to expand...

I think we will all agree on this... But it still easier to put europe-america-europe-america roster. It will also make discussion somewhat easier...
When we are at work in us and you guys at home after work we can discuss turns for the next US player. And guys from europe can actually play while everyone is online and in case if questions comes up it is easy to get hold of the rest of the team.

WackenOpenAir said:

Since MB doesn't want to make it very hard and he doesn't want people to lose in 20 turns, i do think it is save to open the game like a normal game, focussing on growth.

The city should be a 6 turn settler factory with the sheep. Depending on the size we let it grow, it will be able to make some military units as well in the 6 turn cycle. (10 s @ size 6)

Click to expand...

I was thinking along the same lines. No way M-B would put a neigbor on our island. Knowing his style he would not want a team to lose in 20 turns.
So growth should be a priority, lets try to get as many cities as we can and try to colonize our island before AIs get Map Making.

Hi guys, I have been away for the weekend (brother getting married) so I have missed the early spamming.

I agree early discussion is all important. Our initial strategy is crucial. We need to be able to defend any early attack and then attack successfully ourselves ASAP.

My experience of always war is meagre, and it isn't a variant I like much. I was pretty impressed by Handy's AWS Byzantine game recently though, and have played one myself. Many of the tactics employed in such games aren't really applicable, especially the overwhelming naval power possible with Dromons. However, one thing is that wonders are definitely possible. I built the Great Lighthouse, the Great Library, statue of Zeus and the Knights Templar in my Sid game. I don't think we should try for all of those but do think we should build the Great Library at least. Ottomans start with masonry, which clearly makes early prebuilds much easier.

In my Byzantine game I attacked an ironless AI by landing lots of units on a hill, founding a town and rushing walls and a barracks. I soaked up the initial vigorous attack, and then with trebucets, ancient cav, crusaders, and longbows and several armies( I had a LOT of elite wins) I was then able to roll over a Sid AI who had never met anyone else. I definitely waited too long in that game though as I didn't attack until I had muskets, and should have gone in with pikes. On deity an even earlier attack should be possible.

One other observation from my game. If there are important potential trades, then you can time your initial exploration to maximize the chances of meeting people when a worthwhile trade is possible. (in a byzantine game you want to get masonry and pottery from the AI). However, in general there isn't much of a hurry to meet the AI.

Mad-bax wants people to have a worthwhile game, and seems intent on reducing random elements. Therefore we must be alone on the start island. I had rather assumed he would give us a 4 turn settler factory start, but certainly wouldn't wander far in an attempt to look for one, as I can't believe MB wants us to follow trails of breadcrumbs.

About wonders:
It pains me to build a wonder in ancient age.
The only time i tried building an ancient wonder other than the lighthouse on low difficulty levels, was last sgotm. And at least 2 of you know what happened
However, i do see the strength or even neccesity of the library in an AW game, and i do think we should build it.

I don't like to think about any other wonders yet unless the AI's will prove to be slow and scouting reveals the need for a lighthouse.... (Think big, think of us conquering all the oversea worlds with knights)

Edit:
I am now doing some excel calculations.

Agreed with Wacken... Gr.Lib will be extremely helpful in this game.
maybe ToZ if we have ivory, but i doubt M-B has provided us with ivory. That will make c3c and ptw games even more disconnected from each other.
Gr.Lighthouse only if there is no other passage to remote lands.

In the competition with other teams if we tie our resources and cities building wonders we will be late with the military expansion.

I have done some little excel calculations. Moving SW really costs too much, we should settle in place.

We can either build 1 or 2 warriors before granary.

If we build 2 warriors instead of one:
-The first settler will be delayed 1 turn, the later settlers will not be delayed.
-After the first settler we cannot build an archer, but a warrior instead.

If it would be a normal deity/sid game where i want to find as many AI asap, i would build the 2 warriors, in this case however i prefer to go for 1 warrior before granary because i am quite anal about optimizing growth and not willing to give up that 1 turn on the first settler.
If however the majority wants some extra scouting, 2 warriors is not a completely evil option

The worker should irrigate the first sheep without roading it, roading it will delay the growth by a turn. Growth is the limitation on the factory, not production, so a turn delay in growth is a price too high for a worker turn. after that, it can irrigate and road the second sheep, then work the BG.

I have renamed the xls file, not really zipped it, so just rename it back.
please check it for errors, i have not done so myself and i am doing many things simultainiously


Edit:
Little addition. Instead of building settler+archer at size 3-4, we can build only settlers at size 1-3.
Of course, both ways we will have a settler every 6 turns, but if we do not build archers, all our settlers will be out several turns earlier. I STRONGLY suggest we do this. I know people all like complicated factories that produce lots of stuff, some people even grow their cities to a 10 production size, but really that is a very costly delay. If we simply crank out all the settlers we can, all the settlers will be out so much earlier that basically we will have an extra city at all moments. This extra city can more than make up for that archer every 6 turns.

Only thing here to watch out for is shrinking to size 1. If the city gets to size one, it will lose one of its food surplus. This may happen only 2 out of the 3 turns between growth. For the first settlers, this is not gonna be a problem, after that i do not yet know, a warrior might be needed.

This all however is not an issue until turn 20.

I will have a play with my spreadsheet tonight, but really I think more information is needed for a solid plan: eg what lies beyond our field of view.
I am not sure about keeping the capital so small and not building military, but suspect you are right Wacken.

The save is available. I have DLed it and will have a look at it tonight.

A few issues:
Settle: In place! Agree with Wacken.
Deity, "but considerably easier". It would suggest an archipelago where we are safe until MM. This calls for somewhat of a gamble, we could be be far up that famous creek without anything even close to a paddle if we are wrong. But if Wacken is right, normal expansion is a must for a good finish date.
AW raises the value of the GL. I would like us to focus on getting it.
Research: Pottery at 100%?

Ok, i think we can agree on settling in place.

Therefore, that is what i do right now, so we can continue the discussion with some more information. And look here !


Other info:
F10 shows the following opponents:
-Indians
-Zulu
-Arabs
-Persians
-Vikings
-Americans

The capital can be a 4 turn settler factory at size 3-4 with 3 irrigated sheep.
I suggest offa does excel calculations tonight to see for the worker actions.

Here's what I worked out to get to a 4.5-6.5 War/Set factory. The warriors could MP while other cities handle building barracks for better units. This setup ignores roading until all three sheep are irrigated. Build order is Warrior, Granary, Archer, Worker, Warrior, Settler, Warrior, Settler, etc. Without roading anything initially, though, I worry that we may not get Pottery in time to switch to granary. If we do, however, the granary will finish one turn before growth, which is optimal, and we get a worker out before the factory starts which will also help.

Oh, and it looks like Xteam is going for the SPAM award again. How do they generate so many posts? Maybe with off-topic posts like this one?

Oh yeah, they always do that..
There used to be "unofficial" competition for the SPam Laurel between them and Smacksters. They would almost always beat us to it.

II prefer not to grow the city to build warriors. rather just make settlers 3-4. This provides us the settlers 3 turns earlier, which is 3/4th of a city. 3/4 of a city not only is enough to produce a warrior every 4 turns, it also can build settlers and workers and thus even more cities, growth and everything !

For short, early game. Growth is everything. No amount of warriors is worth 3 turns delay.

In even other words: 3 turns delay now = 3 turns delay for ever = at least 3 turns delay on victory. Those warriors are in no way gonna gain us enough to make up for that.

Yet more different words:
a warrior every 4 turns = 2,5 shield per turn. 3/4 of a city = 1.5 food per turn + shield + commerce.

(yes, i really wanna convince you guys )

The worker thing looks good, the irrigation of the second and third sheep could be delayed by 1 turn, and roading costs 2, so it cannot be done.

If however, you guys are gonna agree with me that we should not grow the city to a settler+worker size, we can road the 3th sheep after irrigating before mining the BG. Then with a road on the plains, our first settler might have 2 movent points for free to save 2 turns on the first town we settle.

I'm afraid we are gonna get the wooden spoon in the spam competition.