SGOTM 15 - Xteam

AlanH

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Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 15 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 can find the Game Details in the first post of the Maintenance Thread. If any changes occur in the game settings or rules, I shall post them in that thread, and edit that post.

Please wait until your team leader/administrator/scribe has reserved a couple of top posts in this thread for game admin information. Then post here to let your team know you have arrived.

Good luck, and have fun. Remember, it's just a GAME! :mischief:
 
We finally get to the first turn set and find Toku in his usual kimono, but then find him again as a Babylonian. :hmm:
Results of the first turn set can be found on this page in our thread.

Undecicded is up next and takes us through Hunting and Animal Husbandry (Turn 44). He finds the capitals of the dreaded Toku's of different colors and better defines the terrain around us.
His exploits can be found on pages 13 and 14 or this thread. :goodjob:
 
Welcome back XTeam. Looks like we're going to be Hindu's this game. :please:

Special welcome to Undecided. :wavey:
And welcome back to zamint3. :thumbsup:

@Undecided, as you are the newest member of XTeam and have not played with us before, we try to follow a couple of guidelines:

- Please contribute as much as you can within the bounds of real life. If you are scheduled to come up as a player and see a conflict, please post about it as we try to be flexible and can switch players around in the roster as needed to keep the game moving.

-We believe that our best play happens when we get the view of as many of us as possible. Please post your reasons why you think a path forward is the best one and please do not get upset if someone doesn't agree. Weighing the pros and cons of an idea are important. We have also found that an idea that seems screwy can often become viable, and powerful, once the team discusses it and finds a way to make it work. Doesn't always happen, but does enough times to encourage all ideas to be put on the table.

- Whoever holds the mouse makes the ultimate decision. When you are up, please feel free to ask for advise. Then play it the best way you now how. If someone makes a mistake, please do not dwell on it, we work together to minimize it.

-Should you have questions, please ask. Better to ask than to guess. :)

- Try to have fun, we are playing our favorite game! :woohoo:

edit - Oh, should post sequence of events:

Once a player is declared as up on the roster and the save has been posted, please confirm within 24 hours that you've "got it". This let's us know you think you have the time and can take the turn set.

Next, you have about 24 hours to post a pre-play plan for the turn set you are about to play. This can be a bit fuzzy if needed. This plan gives us a guideline for the issues involved in the upcoming turn set. We usually take about 72 hours to flush this out and a "final" pre-play plan is posted/updated. If you are unclear on an issue, you may leave another 12 to 24 hours to ensure clarity, then it is time to grab the mouse and play the turn set.

We do play test saves quite a bit. Please do NOT confuse the real save and the play test save. (In making play test saves, please do not include the SGOTM15 or XTeam name in them as the monitoring software (HoF Mod) can get confused and show we replayed turns when we have not) If the team feels more play testing is needed, we can be flexible on the 72 hour flushing out period. :mischief:

For the team:
We have been pretty flexible on turn set length. I think we should be a bit more careful this game with long turn sets. I think 10 to 15 turns per set should be our goal, except for the initial set and if we get behind. :shifty:
 
Checking in... Undecided, welcome to the looney bin. :D

My PC got hosed up and I am in the process of reinstalling Windows and all my stuff. I think I am getting close, but might be out of action a bit longer.
 
Checking in - feels good to be back! :goodjob:

I guess settling on the corn is out of the question ;)
:hmm:

If you are referring to the discussion on PRs SGOTM14 thread, I couldn't tell which of those guys were serious and not.... :crazyeye:
 
Checking in...

Hi Xteam, thanks for the warm welcome. :)

@ leif

The guidelines and summary of events answered all questions i had after skimming through Xteam's SGotM-14 thread.


Will ask, if something isn't clear.


Lets lead everybodys favourite peacemonger to victory!
 
Checking in. I'm continent hopping for the next few weeks but most of the time I should be able to contribute.

I wonder how much this games special requirements will affect normal game play? What is the victory type we should look at? Perhaps we should make a decision on that very early...?

Good luck with the technical rearrangement Hawk. I've notice CIV and particularly Buffy have arguments with Windows 7 as I installed it on a new machine, using Windows 7 for the first time. You have to install it just right, and it's not standard. There is one very helpful thread which has a very detailed description of the issues and how to overcome them! I think I know how to play so that a game can be submitted now... :crazyeye:
 
@Z3...I was just being a brat. I was refering to a comment I made about settling on SG13.

I wonder how much this games special requirements will affect normal game play? What is the victory type we should look at? Perhaps we should make a decision on that very early...?

I propose the AP VC with an old Gambit, one enemy and a one or a two friends. May need Optics but still doable.
 
Welcome to Undecided and glad to have Z back.

Agree that determining a VC early is desirable. Htadus, what would we need to know before committing to AP?
 
I propose the AP VC with an old Gambit, one enemy and a one or a two friends. May need Optics but still doable.

neilmeister did a good job in SGOTM14 to balance the different VC :goodjob:

He must have done more that just making us stay in Hinduism (making the most cheesy part of AP VC impossible) to prevent an early religious victory. :mischief:

Domination and conquest has been the favoured VC for the last 2 SGOTMs so I'm guessing UN for this one. :crazyeye:


(Options: Well, LOTS. Lets see, there's: No City Razing, City Flip After Conquest, Aggressive AI, No Tech Brokering, No Vassal States, No Goody Huts, No Events, Unrestricted Leaders.

Something in this could indicate a cultural attempt to be the way to go! :scan:)
 
Gandhi -
Philosophical - +100% Great Person birth rate and double production speed of University.
Spiritual - No Anarchy when changing civics, we cannot change religion and double production speed of Temples.

Let's see what these options mean:
No City Razing - If we capture it, we have to keep it. Only way to get rid of a city is to sell it to another civ.

City Flip After Conquest - Cities that have been captured via conquest can convert peacefully back to a previous owner.

Aggressive AI - AI Leaders favor war over diplomacy.

No Tech Brokering - Players cannot trade technologies they have not researched themselves.

No Vassal States - Makes conquest take longer due to no vassalizing an enemy civ.

No Goody Huts - No Christmas Candy.

No Events - I like this, no random events.

Unrestricted Leaders - Players may lead any civilization with any leader.

So we do not know Gandhi is Indian or not with Unrestricted Leaders as he may lead any civilization. Need the save to figure this one out.
Just tried starting a Ghandi game with unrestricted leaders and got Gandhi, leader of Korea. The starting techs are the techs of the leader's traits civilization. Our UU is Hwacha and UB is Seowon.
Second try was Gandhi of the Aztecs. Starting techs were Hunting and Mysticism... :hmm:
Game assigns the civ to the leader on game creation, no user choice.

edit -screen shot shows that we will be Gandhi of India. :hmm:

Something in this could indicate a cultural attempt to be the way to go! :scan:)
What the hell is culture? :crazyeye:
If the right civ is matched with Gandhi, you could be right.
 
The way around the cheesy AP restriction is war and gifting/loosing a key city to a bad guy AI. But I love culture game. So that is cool too.

CP, the only thing we are going to need to do is to know where the AI is and denying at least one AI his own religion and spreading ours to that AI. Depending on Accessibility, a BC VC is possible. Them play the diplo game.
 
The way around the cheesy AP restriction is war and gifting/loosing a key city to a bad guy AI. But I love culture game. So that is cool too.

CP, the only thing we are going to need to do is to know where the AI is and denying at least one AI his own religion and spreading ours to that AI. Depending on Accessibility, a BC VC is possible. Them play the diplo game.
Surely Neil will make us research Astro before we can contact all civs to balance out the AP VC?
 
Gandhi -
Philosophical - +100% Great Person birth rate and double production speed of University.

I'm thinking universities won't play a big part as we're not looking to go far into the tech tree (we hope) The philo trait indicates though that big populations would be a big bonus. Looking for lots of food? :scan:

Spiritual - No Anarchy when changing civics, we cannot change religion and double production speed of Temples.

The temple building bonus could be useful, especially if we are considering a culture victory? In any case the extra happy would be useful if we want big populations.

Let's see what these options mean:
No City Razing - If we capture it, we have to keep it. Only way to get rid of a city is to sell it to another civ.

City Flip After Conquest - Cities that have been captured via conquest can convert peacefully back to a previous owner.

The no city razing makes the military options harder. The flip will only take effect though if there is current culture pressure on a city though right? No - hang on - they flip (As long as you are peace) anyway without this option if you have direct culture pressure from another city. Does this option mean that they can flip without direct culture pressure from another city? Or does it just mean they can flip while you're still at war? I've not played this option before.

Aggressive AI - AI Leaders favor war over diplomacy.

Makes culture option a little more difficult - the thing I always find difficult at higher difficulty levels going for culture is wondering how many hammers to burn building an army to convince the my neighbour not to eat me while I'm busy building temples, cathedrals and culture!

No Tech Brokering - Players cannot trade technologies they have not researched themselves.

Definitely severely slows the tech rate in a higher difficulty game. Surely would make a space race out of the question?

No Vassal States - Makes conquest take longer due to no vassalizing an enemy civ.

An option definitely designed to reduce the attractiveness of a military victory.

Another note. I hate the AP generally. I have little experience in using myself and I hate it when the AI uses it to stuff up my empire for me. <sigh> But maybe it's time a learned something new? :mischief:
 
@CP
I would consider the regular Ghandi as one of the best choices for a culture attempt regardless of unrestricted or not. The only thing that isn't top notch on Ghandi is starting techs and the UB. Matching him with Inca (agri+myst), China (agri+mining) or Egypt (agri+wheel) would help but you're always loosing the fast worker which is a pretty big deal.

Regarding the AP:
I'm starting to think that the AP might be a worthwhile investment even if we're not trying to win that way:

1. no religion switch and aggro AI should lead to a pretty tense (diplo)game. there are some resolutions which could help to ease the animosity but we might not get the necessary votes without the AP-religion (2x votes)

2. wars could be difficult with the game settings. We can't raze the AP and it could actually flip back to the original owner.

3. the AI is more likely to switch to your religion if you're running the AP-religion, which might lead to a couple more friends which is never bad.

4. Half-priced temples with +2 hammers is a pretty good deal imo. monasteries, shrines, cathedrals also getting the bonus which might come in handy for a culture vic.

5. Theology can be bulbed easily if we're planning to get the oracle. we need meditation (half-price temples) and mono (OR civic) extra.


Disadvantages:

1. Theology doesn't help to tech currency or literature or Col etc. which could backfire with no-tech-brokering

2. costs 400hammers + everything we're going to build because it's suddenly worthwhile after getting the AP

3. Pollutes our GP-Pool

4. The GProphet can't build a shrine, trigger a GA or become a superspecialist if we bulb theology

---------------------------------

I agree that we probably have to tech optics to make contact with every civ.

----------

Does anybody has some thoughts on the start yet? I'm really bad at mind reading and while i'm almost positive that neilmeister wouldn't want to see a team loose after a dozen turns there are some choices which could be considered bold under the given circumstances. ;)

I'm also in the process of playing a couple games to get a feel for WW and hinduism dates.
 
Nice summary Undecided. The disadvantages are not that bad, if bad at all, me think.

Neil is one of the best AP players out there. So he would make this VC very difficult to achieve and on the surface he may have done just that. But there are ways around it.

I think we should use the old Oracle>MC>chop a forge to get a GE gambit. MEanwhile claim friends and chose an enemy. We need to found a city near this enemy (hope for izzy). Build the AP in that city. AP declare on this enemy. Once that AI is the owner of UN and we have the most Votes and at least 1 Friend, the game is over. Been there done that.
 
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