SGOTM 22 - Xteam

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Good luck with the game, and - Have Fun!

Welcome XTeam to our new thread. We have some new blood here, glad you could join us. If you have questions, please ask them.

Think we try to operate on consensus, but with one rule, the mouse holder has the final say. We can discuss all day long, but the player that is up decides based upon the strength of the arguments they hear.

Please check in and let's start discussing the rules, scenario, strategy and opening moves that we may see as possible.

<reserved>

Really, really, I intend to use it this time.

Checking in.... will comment on the scenario & rules tonight (I am at work now and about to do a round of interviews)

Welcome to SGOTM#22

I'm glad we finally started this game! This scenario has a lower AI-level, but don't be over confident as it won't be easy! There's no fun without threat in Civ, at least that's what I think. So don't be discouraged if you bump your head: It's meant to happen.

As far as I know most admins and mapmakers before me have been quite silent during the game. But I like to stay in touch with the players. I read the threads and I might comment from time to time. If you want to be left alone, just tell me. It's your thread and if you don't want any visitors that's entirely your choice.

It would be nice if you somehow mark the posts (turn reports) in which you got new cities, so that we/I can check if you stick to the rules. And we all love to see screenshots all the time.

OK, that's all. Have fun and good luck with your game!
For the glory of Rome!

Checking in, after a short delay I have been returned to our team.

The rules are simple enough. Pangaea conquest. We are limited on number of cities so we will probably have to cheese by choping/whiping insane amount to then gift the city away to be able to do it in new cities.

All out war is something I need to learn so this will be interesting.

Cactus Pete checking in.

Glad Folket understands the rules. Not sure I do. Concur with his initial thoughts, though: A Pangaea map begs for Conquest (can't imagine Space winning), and razing or capturing, whipping, then gifting would seem requisite.

Looking forward to learning Neil's thoughts.

BSP, welcome your ongoing presence (and your effort in putting this together). Note that you've stated that the AI will all start with Priesthood, but your post in this thread implies that they have other atypical advantages as well or that here are other game anomalies built in. If so, consider giving us some idea what, in order to avoid the risk of teams making a loosing decision for good reasons. Wise play should be rewarded, not trumped by the mapmaker.

BSP, welcome your ongoing presence (and your effort in putting this together). Note that you've stated that the AI will all start with Priesthood, but your post in this thread implies that they have other atypical advantages as well or that here are other game anomalies built in. If so, consider giving us some idea what, in order to avoid the risk of teams making a loosing decision for good reasons. Wise play should be rewarded, not trumped by the mapmaker.

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No hints, sorry. Discuss and decide. And assume the others have to make the same decisions.

leif erikson said:

Welcome XTeam to our new thread. We have some new blood here, glad you could join us. If you have questions, please ask them.
snip

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Hi it has been a long time since I played a SG so I do have a few questions about procedure.
Q1. Besides BUFFY are any mods required or recommended?
Q2. Are all file uploaded to civfanatics.com or are some files (like pictures) uploaded to "personnal" sites and linked here?

If anyone is interested, I have made up a test game based on the snapshot and info provided in the intro.

Joe

Jersey Joe said:

Hi it has been a long time since I played a SG so I do have a few questions about procedure.

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Welcome to XTeam.

Jersey Joe said:

Q1. Besides BUFFY are any mods required or recommended?

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BUFFY is all you will need. BUFFY contains many other mods, so it is a complete package.

Please try downloading a BOTM and make sure it works. If not, post and we'll try to help you get it up and running. We'll need to know your operating system and version of BtS (disk or STEAM)

Jersey Joe said:

Q2. Are all file uploaded to civfanatics.com or are some files (like pictures) uploaded to "personnal" sites and linked here?

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You may attach them to your CFC account by using the attachment function or you may upload them off site and linking them here. Either way is acceptable.

Jersey Joe said:

If anyone is interested, I have made up a test game based on the snapshot and info provided in the intro.

Joe

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Please do upload it. Please make sure the file name is distinctly different from the save files names the actual save uses, we do not want BUFFY to get confused. Something like testgame_xteam should do.

edit - actual game file names will look like this:
Xteam_SG021_AD0660_01

Signing in and hello to the rest of xteam.

I agree with folket and CP about this being a conquest game.

I will get involved more this week end.

I actually think this might be a space game. For me this was always the holy grail of SGOTM mapmaking... to make a game where space was optimal but not mandatory.
So it strikes me that maybe that is being attempted here, there is bound to be an AI we can only reach with advanced technology.

The restrictions on the number of cities means we will likely only ever have a small empire, and we will only expand very slowly.

For example, we cannot settle or conquer city 2 until we have built a Granary or Library. This will slow us down a lot as normally getting to 3 cities asap is crucial and is normally done before building infra. While there seems to be enough building available at low tech levels to allow expansion, they will all take time to build.
We can only have the number of cities equivalent to Caput Mundi's pop, and there isn't much food around it! This means we will almost certainly need to farm and not cottage our cap...

So, we may find ourselves with a small empire trying to fight much bigger empires. At Monarch this is normally not difficult, but normally we can keep cities until we are a big empire, this time we cannot. So every time we manage to kill an AI, we will almost certainly be allowing their neighbours to grow bigger, unless we are in state of constant warfare.

Unit cost will also be a factor

"I actually think this might be a space game. For me this was always the holy grail of SGOTM mapmaking... to make a game where space was optimal but not mandatory. Interesting speculation. Have you thought about how that might cause us to do things differently in the beginning?
So it strikes me that maybe that is being attempted here, there is bound to be an AI we can only reach with advanced technology." From speculation to certainty. Crazy Aussie.

Whatever we do, in order to grow the empire we will need population in the capital. @ of the 3 food resources require Calendar and Iron Working to utilize. So, where do we settle? Site 1 provides the most ultimate food, site 2 provides the most water tiles in the city boundaries and site 3 provides 2 Wine for commerce and a bit more food.

The starting image:

Like #3, but not by much.

Cactus Pete said:

From speculation to certainty. Crazy Aussie.

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The beginning will be the same regardless of space or conquest with the only possible exception being that we must settle the river for space (for the levee).

We could also settle on the coast next to the river mouth (SE of western wine).
Pigs, 2 Wine (which are only useful as early cottage replacements). This opens up options like getting GLH which is always nice, but maybe not so much in a modified Pangaea map. There *might* also be extra food out in the ocean.

edit: looking at it again, going south, west or both looks very very tempting. We keep the only real power tile we can see but might jag something else.
edit2: I think it would be prudent to wait a few turns to settle until the warriors can reveal more

We might take one extra turn to get a warrior on the western-most southern forested hill (ON THE SECOND TURN) and another on the first western forested hill, with a thought to settling on the coast and still keeping the pig if seafood (or something unexpected like cow or gems) is available. Settling in any other direction seems to require loosing the pig, and that is unlikely to be an improvement.

Standard size map Pangaea on Monarch. We should be able to conquer it using HAs and never keeping a city.

We can adapt when we know it will be a later game but we can't go back into a BC win if we do not try it. Let us pump HAs from 2-3 cities while teching knights. This strategy also works well with getting AH for pigs which tells us where to settle our next city.

My first try for a start would be SIP getting worker revolting to slavery after first settler and whipping granary before we settle it.

I made the test from the snapshot of our opening position and other info provided (like opponents start with priesthood).
For opponents I took "traditional" roman rivals:
Hannibal, Hatshepsut, Alexander, Gilgamesh
Bismark (repainting the Vandals)
Churchill (since Julius Caesar campaigned in Great Britain)

Opps. I forgot to give US the hunting technology. It is fixed and reloaded.

Folket said:

Standard size map Pangaea on Monarch. We should be able to conquer it using HAs and never keeping a city.

We can adapt when we know it will be a later game but we can't go back into a BC win if we do not try it. Let us pump HAs from 2-3 cities while teching knights. This strategy also works well with getting AH for pigs which tells us where to settle our next city.

Click to expand...

In normal GOTM & HoF, yes I would agree, but I would be staggered if anyone achieves a BC win, if they do then it will be a poorly designed SGOTM game and I don't think BSPollux would give us a poorly designed game.

I would think moving the 2 SW warriors towards the coast & the forested hill will only cost us 1t of settling in place (settler moves to pigs and waits for warriors to move twice). With so many hills but so little food (and a big restriction for us where food really matters) I think it is worth 1t to be certain a better start is not out there.

Thanks for the test save Jersey Joe, I will give it a go