SGOTM 20 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 20 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 with the game.

The team lists are at the end of this post.

This is Deckhand's first SGOTM, with a hand crafted map and scenario from guest map maker, BSPollux.

You will play as Mehmed the Defender of Faiths.



You are Mehmed II and you are in charge of what's left of the Ottoman Empire.

Just a few years ago your glorious capital was flourishing under your King's rulership and you, as Captain of the Guards, and your men were proud to protect its borders against all foes. Your people engaged in trade and cultural exchange with various foreign tribes and the future seemed bright.

But it all changed when all the different preachers arrived. When the foreigners brought their beliefs to your city, the King tried to prevent them from spreading and caused great unrest. And now, you find yourself at the height of a devastating civil war. Your King is dead and the capital is burning.

You took your loyal guard with you as well as a small group of your subjects. They have followed you to the northern border of your nation to rebuild your empire.

Your starting situation
Click for a full size image


Your guard is well trained: The warrior and the archer both have the city garrison promotion and your scout is an experienced medic.
The people that will settle your new city know about The Wheel, Fishing and Agriculture, but they lack any higher education.
Your former capitol lays to the south. The last time you saw it it was burning and the people were fighting in the streets. It might be dangerous to go back anytime soon.

Your goals
You have sworn to rebuild your empire and to ensure such madness will never be repeated, by encouraging and not suppressing faith. To do so...

Take control of the Religions! - Only you (or your vassals) may own a Holy City.
Bring them together! - Each of your cities has at least two religions. There are at least seventy temples in your cities. Each Great Prophet settled in your cities counts as four temples.
Promote Equality! - You must adopt and stay in Free Religion upon learning Liberalism.
End the madness! - You will be told how to do that after you capture (or found) Holy Cities for three religions or when you have met every other civilization.
Prove that you are a worthy ruler! - You win the game in any way but conquest.

Game Options
Ancient Era Start
Normal Speed
No Goody Huts
No Events
All Victory Conditions Enabled

Map size Large
9 Opponents
Normal Barbs
Map: Custom made Pangaea
Difficulty: Immortal

==================================

Timetable

The Pre-game Discussion Thread for this game is open.
Links to saves and progress information will be available on the SGOTM Progress Page

The team discussion threads for this game are now open.

The team starting saves will be available here on July 7.

The completion deadline will be October 31. Plan your game, and please avoid a last minute struggle to meet the deadline.
Please be warned, except in the event of cosmic catastrophes. THERE WILL BE NO DEADLINE EXTENSIONS.


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, Unless stated otherwise in this thread before the game starts..
  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 you should create and update a separate copy. See also the note about Steam updates below.
  
  Macintosh players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows software on their system.
  
• Steam
  If you play BtS using Steam, then your BtS will auto-update to a new version which is incompatible with those playing the DVD version. You will therefore need to install the Steam "beta" version to play this game. You can check whether your copy of BtS is compatible by downloading a SGOTM 19 starting save. If it loads OK in your copy of BtS, then you are ready to play.
  
• 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.
  
  Note, the usual GOTM restrictions apply: no replaying, no liberating cities to a civ you are at war with (except in peace deal), no subsidizing resource trades with AI, no goto mapping or flying camera, only 1 tech from Oracle/Liberalism.
  
  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 and Spam will absolutely NOT be tolerated in this thread.

Current Team Lists
The table below lists the current membership of the competing teams.

Game Summary

000-001 (haphazard1)
001-002 (haphazard1)
002-005 (haphazard1)
005-009 (haphazard1)
009-012 (haphazard1)
012-015 (da_Vinci)
015-019 (da_Vinci)
019-030 (nocho)
030-038 (Ronnie1)
038-052 (haphazard1)
052-068 (Ronnie1)
068-080 (nocho)

Suleiman
Met T8.
Hates Us.

Peter of Russia
Met T5.
Hates Catherine.

Catherine of Russia
Met T9.
Hates Peter.

Louis XIV of France
Met T24.
Hates Napoleon

Augustus of Rome
Met T24.
Hates Julius.

Napoleon of France
Met T26.
Hates Louis.

Julius of Rome
Met T27.
Hates Augustus.

Victoria of England
Met T45.
Hates... nobody... yet.

Hi everyone, and welcome to our team thread!

Happy to have a new member: Ororo. We also welcome back a veteran Gypsy King: da Vinci.

I read that Ororo has played SGOTM before with the Maples Sporks, so I'll skip the formalities about the rules.

To repeat what I said last time:

• have fun,
• let your ideas be heard,
• don't take things too seriously.

Respect SGOTM rules:

• no looking at other teams' threads,
• no replaying the save.

Doing so could cause us to be disqualified, which would make me sad.

The Pre Play Plan

I'd like us to keep the tradition of the PPP going. A brief read through our SGOTM19 thread should show/remind you of what is in one. If it is your turn to play, please post a PPP as soon as possible. It may not be the final draft, but it makes for a good starting point to begin/continue the discussion.

Game Logs

As team captain, I found the BUFFY Autolog to be immensely helpful for reviewing the game and analysing what happened.
I would like all turnset playing team members to familiarise themselves with this feature of BUFFY. Know how to a) enable it/start logging, b) where the log file is located on your machine, c) how to insert a user message into the log while playing, and d) configure BUFFY to colour code things with forum tags.

The Turnset log you receive upon submitting the save to the server should also be posted - though it is harder to read.

Checking in. Hello again to everyone, especially to dV and Ororo. With the latter on board I think Maple Sporks booked their best results, so a fine addition for MGN I may say. I guess we can make it to the top 6 this time around.

h-something-whatever reporting for duty!

Welcome to Ororo, welcome back to dV. I am looking forward to playing this SGOTM with all of you, and to learning new things from discussion and game play. SGOTMs are that rare combination of fun and educational that so many other activities only wish they could be.

I will comment on game things (like initial scouting moves and possible capital settling options) once I have had some sleep. 4 AM is not a good time for rational thought.

Checking in! Welcome back dV! Keep the questions coming.

Greetings Ororo.

Your goals
You have sworn to rebuild your empire and to ensure such madness will never be repeated, by encouraging and not suppressing faith. To do so...

Take control of the Religions! - Only you (or your vassals) may own a Holy City.
Bring them together! - Each of your cities has at least two religions. There are at least seventy temples in your cities.
Promote Equality! - You must adopt and stay in Free Religion upon learning Liberalism.
End the madness! - You will be told how to do that after you capture three Holy Cities or when you have met every other civilization.
Prove that you are a worthy ruler! - You win the game in any way but conquest.

Click to expand...

Initial thoughts on limiting factor???

Checking in I'll try to summarize my thoughts on the format as soon as I get some rest

Though it seems like either AP cheese or Domination (spamming settlers while conquering) are the clear candidates for this one...

Ronnie1 said:

Checking in! Welcome back dV! Keep the questions coming.

Greetings Ororo.


Initial thoughts on limiting factor???

Click to expand...

Checking in.

If each city has two religions, we need 35 cities. If each city has 7 religions, we need 10 cities. What is more limiting, 35 cities, or 7 religions in each? Best may be 20 cities with 3.5 religions each?

Having enough monasteries to make misisonaries may be an issue, since one can't pop in and out of Org Rel for that task after Liberalism. Which might delay Sci method?

And I expect the "stop the madness" unknown factor to be some limiting thing.

If we need to own all holy cities (or vassal them), seems that some version of domination will be the order of the day. Either a dom win, or a UN or AP fueled by domination (the necessary warring will make peace diplo hard unless everyone is our vassal). Actually might have to vote against ourselves at some point to not win too early?

dV

I'm also thinking that AP might be the way to go here.

It seems that we are allowed vassals - a feature that has been turned off for the last few SGOTMs. A typical path might be:

1. Early REX as usual
2. Conquer neighbours
3. Target Holy Cities
4. Make some vassal friends
5. Whip temples in last couple of turns
6. Win by AP

The game need not even reach Liberalism.

"End the Madness" special condition... we could try to speculate, but I'm sure it won't affect how we plan the early part of our game. We should try not to completely tank our economy before reaching it though, just in case it requires more advanced techs. Unless mapmaker has tucked an AI into an unreachable spot or across ocean, I don't think meeting all AI will be too difficult.

What is our "fear" level at the start? We have been given a scout, a warrior and an archer. We could choose to explore with all three, or keep military units at home to defend, or a combination. I think it comes down to our interpretation of:
"Your former capitol lays to the south. The last time you saw it it was burning and the people were fighting in the streets. It might be dangerous to go back anytime soon."


@dV - Between 10 and 35 cities... 7 religions in each city would be quite difficult: random chance of missionary-fail increases with more religions in the city. I suggest we just play a natural REX+Conquer game, where we'll probably end up with about 20 cities.

AP victory does not contradict a warmongering approach - our vassal(s) will vote for us, and voting population can be manipulated to suit us.


I think our limiting factor will be the usual one for a warmongering game: How fast can we build and maintain an effective army.

I generally agree with the thoughts posted so far. AP with us/our vassals holding most of the votes is a strong possibility, or domination. I am guessing the End the Madness hidden condition will force us a bit further into the tech tree to prolong the game, but that is only a guess.

Given the backstory, it seems likely that at least some (and maybe all?) the religions will have been founded at the start. Checking the religion screen should be our first step to see how much we may already know.

I think we need to find out exactly what the failure chance for religious spread looks like as more religions are present. I don't think I have ever had 7 religions in a single city, and rarely more than 4. So I don't actually know just how bad the odds get as you push for those additional religions.

I agree with adrianj that we probably will want/need quite a few cities to take control of all holy cities. 20 or so sounds reasonable, so we should be able to manage maybe 4 religions per city with appropriate temples. Since temples provide happiness, I don't think we will want/need to wait until the end to mass whip them. They will be useful earlier to grow our cities larger.

On the danger or returning to the capital, maybe there is something there (strong barb unit? horde of barb units? other?) that could attack any unit we send to explore? Possibly even following the unit back to our home, if we don't intentionally run elsewhere? Still, even with a threat I think we need to find the old capital and learn what we can.

It seems that we are allowed vassals

Click to expand...

Vassals are allowed.

Hey guys!
I'll try to read all team threads and watch out for misunderstood rules at the start. Don't want to have the game decided by unclear wording. Still, if anything is unclear PM me at once.

Something else: I'd like to gather intresting facts during the game for comparisson later. Just like we did after the game for sgotm#19 in the lurker thread. I think it will be a fun read later, and way easier then reading 20k posts of all team threads If one of you or all of you as a team dont want me to include you in that, please let me know. Not sure it it will work, depends on how much time I got and how much everyone spams.

BSPollux said:

Vassals are allowed.

Hey guys!
I'll try to read all team threads and watch out for misunderstood rules at the start. Don't want to have the game decided by unclear wording. Still, if anything is unclear PM me at once.

Something else: I'd like to gather intresting facts during the game for comparisson later. Just like we did after the game for sgotm#19 in the lurker thread. I think it will be a fun read later, and way easier then reading 20k posts of all team threads If one of you or all of you as a team dont want me to include you in that, please let me know. Not sure it it will work, depends on how much time I got and how much everyone spams.

Click to expand...

Hi Pollux.
No objection to compiling statistics from our game. I also like to read the lurker thread after we've finished.

I don't think you need to police our understanding of the rules quite so actively. If a team is confused they can send a PM or ask the question in the Maintenance thread. I feel that a team should find their own path through the rules/options, as an astute reader could give their team a comparative advantage.

Edit: On reflection... perhaps it is unfair for that comparative advantage to go only to strong English speakers. In any case, an item like "Vassals are allowed" is a bit too trivial to concern the mapmaker. Please concern yourself only with actual rule-breaking discussion.

Ok that was ment like this:
-I will read all threads all the time
-I will take notes for later use
-A positive effect of that is that I can spot dq-worthy mistakes earlier.

Thank you for clarifying BSP

Does anyone have the time and inclination to create a test map with known game settings and starting area?


To open the discussion on our first moves, I propose the following:

• Move archer 2S to stand on top of hill.
• Move scout NE/SE along Northeastern coastline.
• Move warrior W to scope out potential city sites around deer or sheep.
• IF those moves don't reveal anything amazing, Settle 1E, where the scout is/was standing.
• First build is workboat.
• Next turn, fortify archer on hill road.

adrianj, I agree with most of your proposed actions. I would adjust:

- Move warrior NW. I don't think W will reveal anything, while NW at least reveals one tile.
- Next turn, archer movement depends on what is revealed.

Some additional thoughts:

I like 1E for the capital, although obviously as we make the initial moves we may see something to change this. But the site has many positives:

- Coastal access (with the hidden condition requiring 3 holy cities or meeting all AIs, I suspect we may need Astro to find some of the AIs)
- Only 2 water tiles, both with seafood, so the coastal access does not weaken the capital at all
- Four hills for production, plus the silver hill
- Enough food to work the various mines and silver
- The food is available with our starting techs, unlike the sheep and deer
- Fresh water
- 5 river grass tiles for some early cottages, plus more grass tiles for later cottages if desired

Really it is quite a strong site. We will need to invest in a couple work boats, and later a lighthouse, so it may develop a bit slower than an all-land capital. But I think it will prove worth it longer term.

I like 1E for settling in general, but the question is whether any other option can beat that?

Alternatives seem to be settle N, W, or SW. Leaving the two (or more?) seafood east for a GP farm. Right now none of those options seem to beat 1E, unless there is something special in the fog west. Alternatively, if there is something special in the fog east, that also might influence the decision.

So moving the scout NW-NW puts him on the NW hill and he sees what we get in the fog with a 1N settle. Is that worth looking at? It does make the warrior move moot as to new reveals. That also might make us consider a 1W settle. Not sure if anything would make us trade a 1W settle two sheep for 1SW settle sheep and deer. Maybe because it saves a hill? How do hill sheep and hill deer compare after development?

On the other hand, the NE-SE scout move might reveal more seafood east ... which 1E settle would not reach, and might be unusable after 1E settle. If we know there is 3 seafood east, would we prefer to reserve that for GP farm?

So is the most important thing to know the east seafood count? Or would we prefer 1E settle even if with extra seafood east, that 1E can't use?

If more east seafood won't stop us settling 1E, then we don't need to go there ... take the scout NW-NW ... if there is gold or gems or some other prize in reach of a 1N settle, maybe that would change our minds about settling 1E.

Of course, if there is gold or gems or other prize east and in range of 1E capital, that would reinforce 1E settle.

Option 1: Archer south to road hill. Scout goes NE-SE ... if extra seafood, reserve east for GP farm (maybe). If extra resources for 1E capital, settle 1E. If both or neither, send warrior NW to reveal one more tile. Then decide if cap is 1E or other. Which other is better, N, W, or SW? I am thinking maybe N is.

Option 2: Archer south to road hill. Scout goes NW-NW. If nothing good found, settle 1E. This does risk losing a 3+ seafood city site, however.

Option 3: Archer could go NE to hill. Partial look east but might miss some extra seafood. Scout could go NW-NW to look there, then make the settle decision. Still risks losing a 3 seafood site if the third one is behind the hill.

I think I like option 1 best. If there is another seafood east, I like that for GP farm, so I'd like to know that answer.

(Like I said, I am all questions and no answers )

dV