SGOTM 05 - One Short Straw

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 5 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.

The Game
You are Temujin, Leader of the Mongolian Hordes. You have tired of fighting the Barbarians, and so this time you have decided to join them instead. You will win a glorious victory in this Monarch game, of course, but you are teamed with the Barbarians, and you have to adapt to Barbarian assets and liabilities:

• You have no starting techs.
• The barbs are your friends, and are fighting on your team.
• You will benefit from the Barbarian capability to explore the world in animal and human form.
• You can research, but you will also learn techs that the Barbarians learn.
• .... And you start off at war with everyone on the planet except the Barbarians. You can make peace with anyone.

The Objective
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, and the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the earliest victory date in the game.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV version 1.74, using special HoF Mod 1.74.SGOTM5.

Schedule
Start files for each team will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of July 25.

I propose that you aim to complete this game in three months, that is by the end of October 2007.

Starting Position
Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Temujin of Mongolia
Rivals - 7: China, Japan, India, Arabia, Spain, Persia and Greece
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Special, sort of a fractal archipelago
Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Normal
Barbarians - Raging, and teamed with the Mongols
Permanent Alliances - Not Enabled
City Razing - Enabled

Notes

• Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher. The number of awards will depend on the number of teams.
  
• All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve victories in the least turns.
  
• 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.

Please enjoy the game

Checking in! Looking forward to playing with you and welcome to new and resurfaced players. I'm away for the next week.

TDK

yep, checking in also. i've only been playing warlords for the last few months, so i'm off to dig out the vanilla disc.

Just checking in--I'm away this week.

Hello, Checking in...

I am around for the next few weeks, but mid August i will be away.

so...the game has begun. any thoughts on opening strategy?

starting off at war means with everyone means that we'll need to prioritise military techs more than usual to begin with. also we'll probably be lacking trading partners for quite a while, so alphabet won't be so important.

conquest or domination seem to be the obvious choices for victory

i would suggest starting by building a warrior and letting the city grow while researching worker techs. then after getting a worker or two out (and maybe a settler) start building up our mongolian hordes...

I think there is a mechanism in the game that upgrades the barbarian units to the most modern possessed by any civ. I we were to build an axeman early the barbs would start popping axes as well. Can anyone confirm this?

TDK

Checking in.

I agree with kkev that conquest/domination are the obvious VC`s to go for.

I think there is a mechanism in the game that upgrades the barbarian units to the most modern possessed by any civ. I we were to build an axeman early the barbs would start popping axes as well. Can anyone confirm this?

Click to expand...

I don`t think this is correct, but given the unusual nature of this game we should probably do 1 or 2 tests to check this out.

I prowled the forums a bit to learn how our barbarian friends 'work' in the game. It seems our relationship to the barbarians is pretty much like a permanent alliance in a normal game. This means we give them our techs and they give us theirs. The barbarians will research techs if they acquire cities to do it in, but without a capital and high troop maintenance that will be an unlikely scenario.
In excess of that, the barbarians:
-acquire a small number of beakers on techs known by at least one 'real' civilization(something like 1-3% depending on the number of civs already knowing it).
-start the game with -100 relations with all other civs, meaning we will have difficulty engaging in any meaningful diplomacy as a team.

From this information, I would suggest we make it a priority to research Bronze Working(axemen) to give our barbarians a fighting chance vs. the other civs.
It would also seem like a good idea to beeline expensive techs and leave the barbs to grab the early cheap technologies for us. Maybe a CS slingshot is worth a try?

I have attached a practice game i found somewhere on the forums - gives a good feel for how the barbs work.

TDK

Back in town for a week.

Looking forward to playing with everyone--this seems like a most unusual game.


TDK--thanks for the save. I played a little of it and it answered a few of my questions. It looked like research dribbled in for techs that several AI had--not sure the mechanism-- barbs popped archery for me when hunting was half done. However all tech was more expensive--appeared to be about 30% more.

So I definately agree with the beeline approach.

I agree with conquest or dom as likely victory--probably dom easier. I would think we could spread religion to barb cities and get culture pop.

Valuable insights on diplomacy:

Klarius said:

In fact it's the same in vanilla for team attitude. And the attitude value towards the barbs is fixed at -100.

That means nobody will ever vote for the barbarian team, if somebody should think about going for diplomatic .

On the other side the human will be nobody's worst enemy, because the barbarian team is not considered for worst enemy.

But more importantly with the list of leaders (none of the loose traders), there will be no tech trading before you get a leader to friendly (which is effectively cautious).
The same for bribing anybody to war.
There will be no trading of any kind with Tokugawa ever.
Open borders with Alex, Isa and Saladin would also require to get them to friendly first, which looks pretty impossible starting with -3 for having declared on them.

There is no difference whether the others are cautious or pleased. Both is effectively annoyed. So unless there is a chance to get somebody to friendly (maybe possible when sharing a religion with Asoka or Cyrus), there's not much point in trying to get on the good side of the civs.

A big problem will be war weariness. The barbarians don't suffer from it, but they collect war weariness points for the whole team. As they will lose lots of units in foreign territory that will ramp up quickly.

Click to expand...

I have just played a few test games, and it looks like the AI`s eliminate the barb`s on their continent fairly quickly. So the barb`s are not likely to be much help unless this map has been modified a lot.

The barbs research techs very slowly, so we are not going to be able to rely on them to backfill all the techs we need. They will research archery before hunting because on monarch the AI`s all start with archery.

As all techs cost more pulling off a CS slingshot will probably be too risky unless we find a good commerce tile in the fog. It would also delay our military build up. As our starting position appears to have relativly little production this could hurt us a lot.

I would suggest someone moves the scout 1 W, and 1 NW before we do anything else.

mdy said:

I have just played a few test games, and it looks like the AI`s eliminate the barb`s on their continent fairly quickly. So the barb`s are not likely to be much help unless this map has been modified a lot.

Click to expand...

Did you beeline Bronze Working? I played a few test games as well and in every case the barbs had at least one civ on the ropes, pillaging every improvement and in one case even capturing the Stonehenge for us! The AI's doesn't have an effective counter against early barb axemen so I think we should still consider going for Bronze Working, which would also be good for chopping and whipping.

I agree we should move the scout to get more info, so I will go ahead and do that.

TDK

This is our situation:


I suggest we settle in place and start Mining and a worker. If a fish shows up in the north sea we can consider switching to Fishing(we will get Fishing relatively quickly without researching it as four of our competitors start with fishing).

TDK said:

I suggest we settle in place and start Mining and a worker. If a fish shows up in the north sea we can consider switching to Fishing(we will get Fishing relatively quickly without researching it as four of our competitors start with fishing).

Click to expand...

Agree with settling in place (after moving scout to make sure we're not missing anything brilliant), and with starting to research mining.

bee-lining bronze-working so that the barbs can get axemen online seems like a good starting plan

but i vote we hold off building a worker until we've researched a few techs. there's nothing a worker can do until we get agriculture, bronze working, animal husbandry etc. so how about starting on a warrior instead? then we can send him out looking for workers to steal

who wants to start? i need to get my hands on a copy of civ vanilla, so i won't be able to play for a week or so, but we should get going asap.

Did you beeline Bronze Working? I played a few test games as well and in every case the barbs had at least one civ on the ropes, pillaging every improvement and in one case even capturing the Stonehenge for us!

Click to expand...

What map script did you use? I used archipeligo initially. On fractal the barbs seem to be far more effective. I guess it just depends on what the map looks like. Regardless of this I agree that mining-bronze working is a good opening.

but i vote we hold off building a worker until we've researched a few techs. there's nothing a worker can do until we get agriculture, bronze working, animal husbandry etc. so how about starting on a warrior instead? then we can send him out looking for workers to steal

Click to expand...

If we go worker first we can mine the pigs, so we will only lose a few worker turns. As we start at war with everyone a worker steal will be more difficult than usual. So I vote for worker-warrior.

TDK said:

This is our situation:
I suggest we settle in place and start Mining and a worker. If a fish shows up in the north sea we can consider switching to Fishing(we will get Fishing relatively quickly without researching it as four of our competitors start with fishing).

Click to expand...

I agree with settling in place, warrior->worker, and bee-line to bronze working. I am also OK with worker->warrior and researching Animal Husbandry to work the pigs & find horses for Keshiks.

I agree with settling in place. I think we shoud be safe with worker first--I don't think the AI would send out an archer that early.

I'm not convinced about mining-BW tho. Are we certain that getting BW gives us a significant chance of spawning axes? Clearly Ag-AH is much better for our own development.

As for how effective the barbs can be, I think it is hugely dependent on landmass. Without much landmass they won't do much.

Anyone know what the AI bonus vs. barbs is at monarch?

I don't think a worker steal is realistic--better to fortify our first warrior to guard against an accident.

Hi guys, missed the sign up while on holiday, so joining you all a bit late.

I would go for mining-BW, but I have no idea how the barbs will spawn when they have a choice of units. But given that no barbs will spawn at all for a while, we do not need to get BW until the barbs start spawning (50 turns or something?). Does that give us room to fit in Ag/AH?

I think a worker steal is a non-starter, as the other civs will see us coming, and run away. We would need to ambush a worker that is wandering outside their cultural boundary.

Big danger is any passing warrior is free to pop in a pillage anything we build, or walk into an undefended city.

How much exploration will we get from barb animals? Can we circumnavigate with them?

To those expressing worry about pillaging warriors, I would remind everyone that the barbs are on our side and raging, chances are that the AI will have plenty to do defending.

mboza said:

I would go for mining-BW, but I have no idea how the barbs will spawn when they have a choice of units. But given that no barbs will spawn at all for a while, we do not need to get BW until the barbs start spawning (50 turns or something?). Does that give us room to fit in Ag/AH?

Click to expand...

The barbs will start spawning animals after about 6 turns and human units somewhat later, but before we could conceivably discover Bronze Working.

ungy said:

I'm not convinced about mining-BW tho. Are we certain that getting BW gives us a significant chance of spawning axes?

Click to expand...

In my test games, the barbs start spawning axes as soon as I get Bronze Working.
I wouldn't mind going for Agri-AnimalH instead, it would certainly be the safe route. On the other hand, going for Bronze Working could be a huge advantage if we manage to cripple a civ or two and it would also be the most fun to attempt to take advantage of our special relationship with the barbs.

I would suggest that we discover Mining and at that time upload a save to allow all the team to asses how well the map is suited for a barb rush. If it looks like there is a lot of land, we continue with Bronze Working. If the map is watery, we can consider changing route to Agri etc.

TDK