SGOTM 14 - The Wizard of Oz - Maintenance Thread

We're not in Kansas anymore

This thread gives you and the Staff somewhere to post about non-spoiler issues relating to the game. It is a way of communicating to the rest of the players outside your team, and with the staff about matters that affect your team or everyone. You can post about bugs, rule clarifications, problems with the roster etc., but please do not divulge information about your team's progress. Please subscribe to this thread so that you are kept up to date with new information as the game proceeds.

The team lists are at the end of this post.

Thanks for this scenario go to neilmeister, who has made the ultimate sacrifice of standing down from the competition in order to bring you this challenge.

In this game you are playing Dorothy of the Americans. Dorothy is Philosophical & Charismatic, as we all know.
A freak storm has occurred, and you and your trusty dog Toto, have been whisked away to the magical world of Oz. Except, there does not appear to be a road, yellow or otherwise, to follow. In order to get back to Kansas, you must not only win the game, but you must find and destroy the Wizard of Oz.

There are good witches, and wicked witches out there, so watch out.

Game Settings

Victory: The laurels will go to the team that can secure the fastest victory that is not Religious.
Level: Emperor.
Map Size: Standard.
Map Type: Mystery.
Game Speed: Normal.
Options: No Vassals, No Huts, No Events, Random Personalities. Barbs are at default setting.
Victory Conditions: All enabled (for the AIs).
Opponents: 8 AIs.
Starting techs: Dorothy starts with Archery as well as Fishing and Agriculture.
Special Condition: You must find and destroy the Wizard of Oz before you achieve the normal 'victory'. Any team not accomplishing this will not be considered for the Laurels. It might not be strictly what happened in the book or the movie, but he has it coming!

Starting screenshot
This is the start of the game (click for a bigger image):



Timetable

The game will start on August 10.

The completion deadline will be December 10.

Awards
The laurels will go to the teams that can secure a non-religious victory and destroy the Wizard of Oz with the earliest in-game dates.

Wooden spoons will go to the team who finishes the game (win or lose) with the lowest score.

Notes

• Versions
  This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using the standard BUFFY-3.19.003 HoF mod.
  If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in BtS version 3.19 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 software on their system.
  
• 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.
  
  In this game the following two methods for gaining prior map knowledge are banned:
  
  - Players are NOT permitted to use the 'Flying Camera' to look for details under the fog.
  
  - Players are NOT permitted to map invisible terrain using the Go To facility.
  
  In the interests of promoting participation by all team members, it is recommended that teams try to ensure that each turn set does not exceed 25 turns after the first 100 turns, and that those first 100 turns should be shared by more than one person (99:1 doesn't really count as "shared"!).
  
  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.
  
• Spoiler information will absolutely NOT be tolerated in this thread.

Team Lists
(L) after a name means that member has declared an interest in lurking exclusively for that team. Number of members is shown in brackets at the end of the team list.

Good luck all!

Moderator Action: No Spam Here Please .
I need players to subscribe to this thread and not to be discouraged by a lot of non-essential posts.

Ahmm, if I may...Now that the teams are formed and threads open, I'd like to suggest something. There's been a lot of heated debate regarding the flying camera and there's also that less known, but much more powerful 'radar trick'.

Surely, this is no way to play the game. To explain it more efficiently, I could post a map here showing the entire starting area plotted with the radar trick. After some training, nothing to stop the entire team to plot the entire map in a day or two. All locations, need for Astro, everything.

There's been a lot of talk about admins not being able to ban it, etc. But do we need that? IMO, a simple word from a team captain that the team won't do it is quite enough. And also before you ask, if there are some transgressions in the team, let the team captain handle it as he pleases.

I wouldn't like to start another heated debate here, this is just a suggestion. If you're up for it say aye, if not...well.

I wouldn't like to start another heated debate here

Click to expand...

But you probably will. Please stop it. If we need a debate, we can open a separate thread. This is not the place.

Checking in!

SNIP

EDIT: Oops. X-POST with AlanH.

Following extensive discussions in various threads, and a review by the GOTM Staff, I have been persuaded that two methods for gaining prior map knowledge are contrary to the spirit of the GOTM/SGOTM competitions. The use of these techniques will therefore be banned during this game.

- Players are NOT permitted to use the 'Flying Camera' to look for details under the fog.

- Players are NOT permitted to map invisible terrain using the Go To facility.

I have added these constraints to the rules section of the first post in the Maintenance thread.

Fine with me.
Mainly because i don's know how to use them

Just to know for my solo games:

Flying camera
Gumbolt kindly explained me how to have it work.
Then i discovered that i already had
; Allow Camera Flying
AllowFlying = 1

but all i have when i hit Alt+F is a satellite view.
So i tried to change it to "0", closed to desktop, restarted and the result was the same

About the "go to" command i don't think it can show much unless there's some hidden way to use it.

Last, the "radar trick" mentioned above. WTF?

It would be kind if anyone wish to enlighten me, just so i can use those in my solo games. Thank you in advance. And don't tell me i'm a noob.

^
"go to" = "radar trick"

But this is not the place as AlanH said, and imo some things are better left forgotten and buried deep anyway.

Please do your research into banned techniques elsewhere. They have been covered elsewhere in these forums, and since they are now banned, it would hardly be appropriate to explain them here.

All anyone needs to know for this game is that, for the purposes of exploring the map, you may only use the information you can get by busting the fog with units or by asking the other Civs.

The rules imply Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory is available to all AI Civs. That implies it is also available to the player, but the rules say that a SGTOM-14 team may not win the game via Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory. If a SGTOM-14 team wins a Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory, does that invalidate a team's entry, regardless of the state (destroyed, not destroyed) of the Wizard of Oz? Or may that team subsequently destroy the Wizard of Oz (if necessary) and then complete another Victory Condition for a valid scenario win?

Sun Tzu Wu

Religious win is enabled in the game, but if a team wins (or loses) via religious, then they will not be considered for the laurels.

So, no, you can't play on to try win another way.

The team saves will be available here in about four hours from the timestamp of this post.

Please avoid opening another team's thread, and please avoid playing the live save when you are not your team's current player!

Good luck and good Wizard hunting, everyone.

Some of you have already noticed that Dorothy brought her toy bow and arrow along, as well as having America's usual starting techs in this game.

I have added Archery to her starting techs in the first post.

My smartphone misclicked into someone else's thread. I saw the word "cyan" when I opened my phone back up and decided I was not in my thread. My apologies.

Thanks for letting me know.

Please use the PM system for future game correspondence that doesn't need to be public.

A reminder:

Please upload your game saves to the server, and don't attach them to your team threads. Putting them in your threads runs several risks which we have experienced in the past. You can confuse the real saves with your test saves, and you may not start a turn set from the latest save.

We very occasionally have to use post attachments if there are problems with the GOTM server, but this should not be an issue now that we are on a new server.

Although I've been aware of the SGOTM for a while, this is the first one I've paid attention to, and I think it's awesome! I'm sure playing would be great fun, but being a lurker is pretty awesome too! Needless to say, I've been helping myself to all the team threads at once!

One of the posts was by AlanH and effects the rules by which SGOTM-14 is run. I also received a e-mail notification that leif erikson also recently posted something to this thread but its not here either.

Can a SGOTM/GOTM staff person please investigate and/or explain?

Thanks,

Sun Tzu Wu