Hello and welcome team! I am really looking forward to this game!
I apologize for the length and tone of this post, but before we get too much into strategizing and discussing the game, we should probably go over some "housekeeping items". I really hate to start things off on a serious note, but if we go through this one time up front, then hopefully we won't have to bring this stuff up again. Rules:
Mad-Bax posted some general SGOTM rules
>> >Here< <<. A lot of this has to do with administering the game.
One rule I'd like to touch on is the "24-72" rule. The idea here is that when someone finished their turns, the next player should post a "Got It" within 24 hours, and play their turns within 72 hours of the "got it". Since we have at least one college student in the game, I'd like to relax that to 36-72±. If you can't get to the thread every single day, try not to skip 2 whole days. This is important for playing and discussion. If you have a big exam coming in 3 days, that's fine. You can either request a skip or we can wait an extra day until you can play your turns. Just please don't go AWOL/MIA and make me auto-skip anybody.
Scout's Rule #1: Participate in discussion.
Scout's Rule #2: Regent level players must not withhold suggestions.
Even if a suggestion is not used, we can analyze it and learn from it. But I'm betting that somewhere along the line one of our "Regent Level Comrades" is going to offer a useful perspective, or catch something the rest of us missed.
More Rules: This game is to be played to Mad-Bax's interpretation of RBCiv rules. The "Spirit" of RBCiv rules is simple: If it feels like cheating, it probably is. Here is some good
Background on RBCiv Rules, with a nice
evaluation of tactics and exlpoits here, and a list of
specifically disallowed exploits.
As I have gotten into GOTM and SGOTM in the last 2 months, I have learned much about what I call the "ethics" of Civ gameplay. Ironically, several
War Academy articles explain in great detail how to use exploits that are disallowed in games like these. There are two specific differences between RBCiv rules and
Game of the Month Rules that I'd like to point out:
Palace Jumping and
Ship Chaining. These are specifically allowed in GOTM, and disallowed under RBCiv (and here).
A more basic form of cheating: Reloading. There are specific circumstances when it's allowed (and one specific circumstance in which I will encourage it). If your game crashes, or if you "mis click" (meant to move the warrior NE, NE, N, and fumbled it to N, N) then you are probably okay to load from the last save. Be sure to duplicate your original moves as closely as possible, so as not to hose up the RNG.
One
other valid reason for reloading: If any one of us gets to a critical juncture in the game (new tech discovered, big stack of AI troops show up, or maybe you're just not sure what to do next) you may save the game
at that point, log on to this thread, and ask your teammates for advice.
The key here is not backing up to try to get a different result from one you've already gotten. If your archer dies in a battle, tough cookies, it's part of the game. Don't reload the game to re-fight the battle until the archer wins.
"Keeping Honest People Honest" - this month's SGOTM saves will be submitted through a similar process that GOTMs are submitted through. Now, I don't know everything that those GOTM staffers can do when they analyze a saved game, but I do know from one older public discussion that they can analyze "turns per session". If the "turns per session" in a Succession game is any number other than 10, they're going to know it, and wonder. So...
Scout's rule #3: If you play a set of turns any other way than ten in a row, note it in your turnlog.
"Spoiler Information": Spoilers are things that reveal information to you that you should not have at a given point in the game. At this point, we should not really know what's outside that settler's nine-tile radius, or where the iron/saltpeter/rubber are. This is a little tricky with this game, because this particular start is rather famous. Cracker analyzed it in his "Opening Moves" site, which is excellent stuff. Like Gengis, I remember jungles to the south... having said that, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mad-Bax tinkered with this map to de-value the spoiler information.
One related problem is that we can access other teams' sites. I can't prevent any of you from surfing another team's thread, but I can say this:
Scout's rule #4: If you gain access to spoiler information, particularly about other teams' games, don't post it here. I'd rather not even discuss other teams' scores and progress here. Let's just focus on our game.
Again, I apologize for the length and tone of this post. Hopefully that'll be the last of my "pompous team leader stuff'.
Now let's have some fun!
Major Edit: Just received a polite PM reminding me of a rule change from SGOTM1. We are prohibited from surfing other teams' threads. And I think they can track this with the new forum upgrade...