SGOTM 01 - Peanut

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 1 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. I hope you enjoy the game.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory. All victory conditions are still enabled though, with exception of Space Race, so you have to avoid getting another type of victory (and of course prevent the AIs from winning).

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of May 12.

Here's the start position.


Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

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

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization4 v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award - the Gold Laurels.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy.

C. 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.

Good luck to your team, and remember rule #1: Enjoy your game

Hi guys

(Sorry, couldn't resist to be the first to post in this.)
I've asked to be a dedicated Peanut lurker for this, hoping to learn something.
Hope you don't mind if I take part in your conversation occasionally.

Go Peanuts!

Wow! We're up! And we have a dedicated Lurker (hi Mathilda) who can hopefully provide us great wisdom in our game play.

AlanH listed me as the coordinator for Team Peanut. This is fine; I'll help get the ball rolling (and I'll be PM'ing everybody shortly). However, I would prefer not to be the captain at this time. I'm already captaining the Civ3 Team Peanut, and besides I only have completed 2 games of CIV (GOTM4 and GOTM5) so if possible I think it would be good to have a bit more experience leading the team.

So please, if you are interested in being team captain, please post that interest. (Otherwise, as coordinator I might let the power get to my head and ASSIGN the position! he..he..heeeee )

One initial thing that is useful is to establish a team roster order based on location around the world. This allows for the timely changeover from member to member as turn sets are completed. So please post your time zone.

I am on the USA West Coast, so currently GMT-7

When it's your turn, we usually try to hold to a 24 hour period to post a 'got-it' saying you will play the turn set or pass it. If you play it, please try to complete within 48 hours, including any questions or discussions about the current play, the play itself, and posting the results to the system. This allows for a pretty quick set of turns, and keeps the game going and the team members' interest up. If you can't play a set of turns, its fine to arrange a swap or a delayed turnset; it's good to keep everybody involved and interested in the game so we want to accommodate someone who would otherwise skip a bunch of turns.

That's all I have for now. Please post that you've noticed the thread, that you're ready for the game and your timezone.

Checking in! I'll post more later, got to rush-off to a meeting.


OK - time zone is GMT +11-12, depending on the time of year.

Regarding the startin position - looks great for a GPP city, a commerce city or at a pinch, a science city (although production might be a tad low), and we'll certainly need some health bonuses with all the FP around - the cow is visible, at least.

As Egypt, we start with agriculture & the wheel, which means we can build farms straight away. Animal husbandry could be a good option for the first tech to get the cow as well as reveal horses for our war chariots, and maybe we should prioritise pottery to get granaries for growth - plus health if there is corn, rice or wheat around, as well as spam a few cottages on the FPs.

If we're at war with Huayna Capac, then we might want to find where he is straight away. Normally I'd just build a worker from the start, but this is risky if he's nearby with Quechua's out exploring. Maybe go for a warrior first?

Checking in. Looks like a great team. I am GMT-5.

What are the odds that they would place the Inca nearby? This is the first GOTM. I doubt they would set this game up in a way that would knock a lot of newcomers out right out of the gate. Perhaps building a worker first would be worth the risk. This would give us a big advantage over all those teams that build warriors first.

Keith

Hey my time zone right now is -6 I think, I'm Canada/USA mountain time. I would perfer to be later in the turn order. Mainly because I'm kinda unexperienced and would like to learn how to play better. Ainwood's suggestions sound great. I personally like building a worker first and chop more workers/settlers; but, there doesn't seem to be very many trees so AH pottery will probably be a better choice. I think making our starting city a good commerece city will be the best choice. With all the floodplains I don't think we will be able to support a very high population and early research is always helpful. Although there are many pros for making it a gp city. If we farm all those fps we would have 18+ surplus food. Also with slavery/herditary rule we could mass sacrfice to mass units and possibly a wonder. Well those are just some ramblings of me, well lets do this.

Paulk

Checking in.

My notes:
1. The start location has too many FP for my liking. I fear we will encounter too much health problems. I would consider moving our starting settler SW to the plain hill. this will get us 2h in the capital + the cows, we will still be on the river and have access to 6FP. This city will probably be a production city.
We will probably put a future city in the desert hill NE NE E of the current position to take advantage of the rest of the FPs.
In this configuration we will only loose 1 FP (SE SE of settler)

2. I am not sure that we should play as quickly as we played in Civ3 SGOTMs. From lurking in many SG in Civ4 and playing one for myself (TM01) it appears that Civ4 require MUCH more coordination between the team members. we need to discuss our path of action, what buildings should be build in what cities (especially national wonders and city role assignments), Wars should be discussed and finally diplomacy that is usually get ignored in SG.

3. I am located in Israel (GMT + 2). However I am not sure that we should base the roster on that due to #2.

4. Based on past experience, I nominate CS as the team captain.

5. I think we should start with AH tech and a worker. We should use the warrior to scout the immediate area and than come back for home defense.
I do not think we should chop any trees (health problems)

Crikey ! Looks like you have a high powered team here ready to take the nutty banner to new heights of glory !

Well, I will join Mathilda as an unofficial lurker and wish you the best of luck to complement your undoubtedly superb CIV skills in this SG.

I hope to learn something of how to play this version by watching you experts.

PS. Strewth mate - good to see an antipodal participant in the team, Ainwood. Brings a nice sense of global balance.

Thanks, peanut!

@Mailman - nice analysis. The extra defence in the capital will be useful, and using the warrior for defence greatly reduces the risks associated with this locked-war in going for the worker first. It will be at the expense of wider exploration, but to be honest, there is a good chance that there aren't many goody huts nearby (game balance).

@Keith: Wouldn't surprise me at all to see the inca nearby, but I'd hope that the game design would be to reduce completely random events. I like the warrior nearby solution - good risk management.

@PaulK: Another argument against (too much) chopping is the health reduction. Moving to the hill should really help this - less flood plains & (potentially?) more forest.

BTW - if we have some health bonuses, that desert tile SE of the warrior might be a good (later) commerce / GP city with slavery to get basic improvements (granary, lighthouse, harbour).



Edit:

Any thoughts on locked-peace / locked war? I've never played with that before. How willing is your locked ally to trade? I guess my concern is that you have to prevent the locked-peace player from getting too big to prevent a domination victory (although I think that's reasonably unlikely given how bad the AI are at taking cities - unless they're dog-piling). If your peaceful ally wins a diplo victory, does that mean we win too?

I think that locked-war AI will behave the same way as AIs in an always war game. That usually keep them a bit backward since they focus on military. However we should keep an eye on the WW issue.
In AW the WW is somewhat reduced. I do not think this will be the case in this game setting. Thats means that until we are ready to take the Inca completely out, we should only fight inside our borders!!

I think that locked-peace AI (never played that setting) means that we can declare on him, and he can not declare on us. However I think that we MAY be at war with him due to a mutual protection pact!
We will probably want to make the locked-peace AI our Ally. With an allied AI we share the same techs (we can ask him to give us whatever tech/resource and he will always say yes - even if it the last resource) and more importantly we share the domination limit.
What that means that we should keep a very good relations with that AI

OK, we've heard from everyone except Phabuk, so please post if you can.

Currently we have:
MailMan at GMT+2
Keith Larson at GMT-5
PaulK at GMT-6
civ_steve at GMT-7
ainwood at GMT-11/+12

I think MailMan's idea to found on the Hill to the SW is a great idea. Gives us 2H right away, and access to lots of fldplns and possible forest, and that Cow space.

I would suggest for a 2nd city site, that we be sure it is accessed to Fresh Water. I think that means it has to be adjacent to a River or Lake, so if this is so and we want the extra health, perhaps we want to found on one of the Hills spaces near where the Warrior is standing. Unless we find a better spot.

I agree that being cautious initially is warranted, so maybe the Warrior does a circuit route going counter-clockwise around the capital, perhaps a distance of 4 or 5 or so, just enough to get the lay of the land, perhaps locate a good resource or two, and defend the capital.

AH sounds like a good first Tech - develop the Cow and locate any nearby horses.

War Chariot sounds awesome! At 5 strength, with 20% chance to withdraw, it sounds like a good offensive unit to use, and at only 25 hammers vs 50 for the Horse Archer, the better unit to build and field.

Egypt is Spiritual and Creative. That means no Anarchy when changing Civics, and +2 culture per city. Combined with the War Chariot, I would think I would think the Domination approach has the potential to be the quicker victory condition. Especially if most civs are on one major landmass. I haven't attempted any invasions of territory off my initial continent in CIV, so I don't have a good feeling for how difficult that might be.

We may want to get a read on whether we want to go for quick domination or fast research. Either way, I think Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet is the first set of Techs we should learn. In the meantime, develop our capital, find Horses, get a couple units out scouting, and establish a 2nd (and 3rd, maybe) city. Around this time we should know enough to settle on our approach.

Also, I have no idea how locked-peace might work. It would make sense to locate this AI and make them a good ally.

Couldn't go a day without some kind of post in our thread!

We seem to have a basic starting strategy - found our capital on the Hill space to the SW, build a Worker, send Warrior in a fairly close radius around capital for protection, start on Animal Husbandry, followed by Pottery. Science on highest sustainable rate.

I'd like to keep the general order per our time zones. I do request that I start off the sequence, if no one objects. I will be out of town most of next week, so this weekend is probably the best time for me to get a turn set in. In that case the turn order would be:

civ_steve
ainwood
MailMan
Keith Larson
PaulK
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

The saves are available. If no one objects, I'll play in about 24 hours.

AlanH and I exchanged a few PM's tonight. Since we haven't heard from Phabuk, he mentioned a few players who would like to join up. Looking at the Team thread, and at the player's names on the Status sheet, I think it's official enough to welcome DaviddesJ to the Team!

AlanH suggested I join your team as a standby for your missing member, which I am glad to do!

More comments later. My only quick thoughts are (1) it's not so important to play in timezone order because I think it's nice to give everyone enough time to comment (if they want) each time the turn is passed, and (2) with a floodplains start, it's relatively more attractive to build warrior first, because you can grow to size 2 and increase your city's productivity more quickly than with non-floodplains starts. (But I'm not taking any strong position on warrior first vs worker first.) I think SW for the capital is ok, although it will create some awkwardness regarding where to situate a second city to the east to use the remaining floodplains.

I'm usually in US/Pacific, but currently in US/Eastern (and will be on the east coast for much of this summer). But when I can play the game is pretty erratic anyway (sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes late at night, etc.).

I like the idea of moving SW to the hill as well. If we have to fight off an early attack it will give a great defensive bonus in addition to all the other advantages mentioned.

My vote is still for a worker first. Our starting techs just invite early development. I have found it very important to play your civ's strengths in Civ4.

I also agree with the close to home, counter-clockwise scouting. I doubt there are many huts to pop and at this level popping huts is not always pleasant!

Finally, I am strongly in favor of the research order Civ-steve outlined. After that I think we should research the industrial tech at the bottom of the tree. If the Inca are near by it is to our advantage to know were all the metal resources are. Unless I am missing something I don’t see what archery and the spiritual techs will give us right now.

At Monarch, I don't believe we'll ever end up having to defend in our capital (unless maybe our locked-enemy is right near us, which strikes me as unlikely). We'll end up defending in the field to stop pillaging. So I don't really count the extra defense in the capital as significant. But the extra hammer certainly is.

An alternative tech order I could imagine is skipping Animal Husbandry to go straight for Pottery. Get the cottages going right away. But since we know we have Cows, plus we want to look for Horses, that just seems all wrong.

Pushing for religion and then cheap temples could also work. But I'm less of a fan of that approach---and the floodplains really call out for cottages.

David,

Come to think of it I have never once had my capital city attacked by the AI. I there something in the code that prevents this?

Keith

Keith Larson said:

Come to think of it I have never once had my capital city attacked by the AI. I there something in the code that prevents this?

Click to expand...

Not that I know of. Just that they will compute the probability of success and not attack when it's low. And usually you won't give them a high-probability shot. Plus, your capital usually has high defense and the AI doesn't really use bombardment effectively. Plus, at Monarch we can pretty much expect to be stronger than the AIs throughout (unless they were to rush us early, which they don't do).

Barbarians are a more likely threat. But, as I said, usually you aren't going to want to defend in your capital and let them raze your improvements---that's a last resort. At really high difficulties sometimes you have no choice, but at Monarch, we should be able to stay on top of them in the field.

Part of me wants to push up the Tech tree after Pottery and go after Writing and the Alphabet - and trade for the other Techs. After all, if we do find Horses nearby, I'd think we'd want to be building a lot of War Chariots, and not too many Axemen. Drawback is delay in ability to Chop.

Is there any strong feeling between building a Warrior or a Worker at first?

Steve,

I think there is no question that going all the way to Alphabet is the best move, I was just starting the discussion of what after that? Our starting location makes chopping not as important or desirable.

Keith