SGOTM 15 - Maple Sporks

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:
 
Roster:

Norvin Green
nocho
Sengir - up
sturick - on deck
pigswill

Honorary lurkers:

Ororo
DwarfSleepy
 
Turnsets played:

4000BC - 3960BC Stone is settled (Norvin).
3960BC - 3200BC Scouting the area, run into Tokus (Norvin).
3200BC - 3040BC Switch to AH (Norvin).
3040BC - 2720BC No wild horses (Norvin)
2720BC - 2000BC Found Golden Fleece, tech wheel & BW (nocho).
2000BC - 1680BC Masonry, priesthood (Sengir).
1680BC - 1440BC Barb warrior ruins the Oracle (Sengir).
1440BC - 1000BC At least we get the mids (Sengir).
1000BC - 725BC Starting on an army, finish construction (pigswill).
725BC - 475BC First catapults out (Norvin).
475BC - 300BC Army ready, currency in (Norvin).
300BC - 75AD Rush Hindu AP, Conquer 3 Japanese cities including Kyoto (nocho).
75AD - 375AD Extort alpha, MC from Toku, who gets dogpiled (Sengir).
375AD - 660AD Toku is no more, bulb philo (sturick).
660AD - 800AD Engineering in (pigswill).
800AD - 900AD Hostilities with Hammu commence (pigswill).
900AD - 1020AD CS in (Norvin).
1020AD - 1060AD Slight setback with the advance on Babylon (Norvin).
1060AD - 1160AD Take peace with Hammu for tech, bolstering army, get DoWed by Hatty (nocho).
1160AD - 1250AD Redeclare on Hammu, take Babylon and Dur. Fending off Hatty and counterattacking (nocho).
1250AD - 1430AD Advance in Egypt grounded to a halt (Sengir)
1430AD - 1545AD Lose foothold and army in Egypt, some progress in Babylon (pigswill).
1545AD - 1715AD Grinding our way through Babylon and Zululand (sturick).
1715AD - 1760AD Hammy DoW, Hatty DoW, Albion DoW, staring at the jaws defeat (pigswill).
Admitting defeat...


 
The task:


SGOTM 15 - The Missionary

This thread gives you and the Staff somewhere to post about non-spoiler issues relating to the game. It is a way of communicating to the rest of the players outside your team, and with the staff about matters that affect your team or everyone. You can post about bugs, rule clarifications, problems with the roster etc., but please do not divulge information about your team's progress. Please subscribe to this thread so that you are kept up to date with new information as the game proceeds.

The team lists are at the end of this post.

Thanks for this scenario once more go to neilmeister, who brought you The Wizard of Oz.

Gandhi has finally completed his training, after years of diligent study, he has mastered the ways of a Hindu priest. The temple that he grew up living next to, has accepted him to join them, but the voyage home is a long and treacherous one. He is of course caught at sea by vikings. :rolleyes::viking: They sack and burn the ship, leaving everyone for dead. After days or perhaps weeks at sea, praying to Shiva :please:, Gandhi is washed up in a strange, hostile land.

Dazed, in darkness he stumbles inland, following a river, falling asleep on a river beach. You are playing Gandhi of the Indians.

For your deliverance, you vow to spread Hinduism to this new world, and spread the name of Shiva.

Victory: The laurels will go to the team that can secure the fastest victory. Thats right, everything is in.
Level: Emperor.
Map: Custom.
Speed: Normal.
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.
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Opponents: 8 AIs.
Special Condition: You must found Hinduism, immediately convert to it as your first and only state religion, and then remain Hindu for the entire game.

Starting screenshot
This is the start of the game (click for a bigger image):



Timetable
The game will start on January 21 2012.

The completion deadline will be May 21 2012.
Players are advised that delaying victory until the last possible moment on this date is NOT recommended.

Awards
The laurels will go to the teams that can remain Hindu for the entire game, and secure a victory with the earliest in-game dates, before the real life deadline of May 21.

Wooden spoons will go to the team who finishes the game (win or lose) with the lowest score.

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.
    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 create and update a separate copy.

    Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows software on their system.
  • 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.

    In this game the following two methods for gaining prior map knowledge are banned:

    - Players are NOT permitted to use the 'Flying Camera' to look for details under the fog.

    - Players are NOT permitted to map invisible terrain using the Go To facility.

    In the interests of promoting participation by all team members, it is recommended that teams try to ensure that each turn set does not exceed 25 turns after the first 100 turns, and that those first 100 turns should be shared by more than one person (99:1 doesn't really count as "shared"!).

    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 will absolutely NOT be tolerated in this thread.

Team Lists
A name in brackets means that member has declared an interest in lurking exclusively for that team. The number of members is shown in brackets at the end of each team list.
 
Hello team, welcome to our thread! :)

Good to see nearly the whole team stayed on and that sturick is back to active status. I was also positively surprised by the speed we all signed up, I guess last time's 5th place left a good feeling. I expect this one to be a bit tougher ranking-wise, some of the teams we narrowly beat seem to have found reinforcements while this time there are also no total newbee teams around, so if we avoid the wooden spoon and finish around 6th/7th out of 9 I think we can already be pretty pleased. I wouldn't mind getting on the podium either though. Ha! Well, anyway, main thing is of course to have fun and to try and do a decent job.

As always, please inform about any holiday plans you may have or otherwise prolonged absense.

Well, enjoy the ride y'all!
 
Checking in.
 
Checking in. Staying with the in-laws until Feb 10 (not as bad as it sounds as they live on the coast of south Brazil) but unless they buy a new computer I'm limited to snide comments on the forum.
 
Here! :D

I can work on a test map but would request all you fog-gazers to tell me what you see before I post it. Also, any clue on what type of map would be appreciated.

I'm guessing that no AI starts with mysticism either. It could be a short SGOTM otherwise!
 
Would be nice if you could make a map, Norvin! On fog gazing, note what neilmeister wrote in the maintenance thread, possibly not coincidentally only 11 minutes after your post. ;)

No idea about map type, but likely astro is needed to meet everybody. I'd go for continents.

What I'd be most curious about is whether stone has fresh water. Is the commerce innate from the resource? It still might have a lake next to it... Settling on stone or marble looks obvious. Marble looks most natural with the river. Stone however might open interesting options with extremely early stonehenge. Poly is obliged, we start with the prereqs to masonry and are philosophical... Popping early priests might make a lot of sense. In any case, I can imagine first 2 cities on stone and marble, we just have to decide on the order. :D
 
Checking in.

I'm currently in the middle of my exams so I can't promise a full commitment until at least January 25. Please don't put me in the 1st place in the roster as this date might change. Thanks.

Norvin, nocho, I volunteer for the fog-gazing duty once the actual save is released. Can't promise 100% accuracy but I think I've proven that this is one of my few strengths in the previous SGOTM/SGs.

As for the Stone, it must have a river attached to it - that is the only way a tile can get an extra commerce. This is what the river probably looks like*:



*Note: This might be a bit different in the actual save as neilmeister has edited the map after the screenshot was made.
 
I agree Ororo, that'd the most reasonable river one can have in that corner.
 
Well spotted, Ororo! :goodjob:

So that makes initial warrior move 1NE even more logical than it already was (as it's sure to reveal 4 tiles instead of max 3 in any other direction)...
 
Totally agree with warrior 1NE.

I also think that neilmesiter made both settling on Stone and on Marble very competitive so I doubt we'll make a huge misplay if we settle on the "wrong" one.

He did something similar in the previous SGOTM:

I was a little surprised to see Fifith Element was the only team to settle on the PH. The sheep was by far the best tile IMO, so I thought it was tempting enough that most teams would at least move the settler to the PH on turn 0, and then decide. I thought I made it pretty obvious that the plains tile were nearly everyone settled had a resource in it. Every other tile in the starting area was forested, I even used both types of forest to make it obvious that it was worldbuildered.

All in all, having access to both Marble and Stone virtually from the beginning is going to make hammer economy very strong.
 
Also... What do you think about these?

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.

No City Razing, City Flip After Conquest (can somebody explain how exactly this works? I have a basic idea but I'd like to know for certain) and No Vassal States were chosen to nerf military-based victories.

Aggresive AI was chosen to nerf peaceful victories though not as much as the military ones. I think AP (which is hardly going to be a cheese victory this time) and Culture are the top 2 candidates.

No Tech brokering is going to slow down the general tech pace. We can almost safely assume that spaceship is out of question.

No Vassal States and No Goody Huts are pretty standard nowadays and were likely chosen to keep the map as balanced as possible.

Unrestricted leaders adds some extra flavour.

Right now, all paths are open. But I have a vision of a wonder-based Cultural victory :crazyeye: Too early for such thoughts though :)
 
It indeed seems the game is designed with the objective of balancing out the VCs. Also note 8 AIs instead of the usual 6, likely slightly complicating diplo/AP. Culture may be an option but even with good land virtually impossible to win before the 1500s I think. Kakumeika won diplo in the 1200s last game... I think a LOT will depend on the shape of the map. :hmm: It must be set up in a way that AP cheese is made very difficult. Geographical barriers, a few Tokus...

I'm also wondering what the "hostile" lands might entail, as well as the viking/sea reference. On an island with presettled barb cities and the only way out is through a sea strait controlled by vikings or something?
 
Well, the Hinduism rule certainly complicates Diplo/AP too. We're very likely to antagonize first few AIs right from the go, unless they have the "don't-care-about-the-religion" personality.

We'll see what the map looks like.
 
Checking in...

My first thought was wonder based culture victory with near immediate access to wonder resources. But as already noted, culture victories can take quite a while. However, we are Philo, so if the map has good food we can crank out some serious artists. So it should remain in the conversation.

AP victory should be considered as well...but I am no expert on this VC. I don't think I have ever used it to win a game before. So more research would be needed.

I would vote for a stone settle start. Quick Stonehenge for an early priest would be nice if we choose to religion spam. Pyramids seem like a no-brainer with a Spiritual leader.

My early diplo thoughts would be to try to get as many of the early religions as possible while spamming missionaries to our immediate neighbors. If we can surround or buffer ourselves in Hindu the religious strife can be held to a minimum. Or at least divert it to our neighbors.

I would also request playing closer to the end of the rotation. I'm a bit civ rusty and trying to "get back into shape"
 
signing in!
No real absense from me foreseen, except the usual work and family commitments.

I was thinking the forced religion and aggressive AI might almost play like an always war scenario... If we go culture we can certainly not neglect our military.
 
Good, all aboard! On the roster, I understand we'll put pigswill and sturick towards the end at their request and Ororo middle to end. Of the rest anybody feels like going first: Sengir, Norvin, DwarfSleepy, moi? :) Beware, I might pay a visit to randomizer.org to sort things out if no one speaks up. ;)

On tech, we'll go polytheism first, right? I guess that's the idea of the game setup, although I sincerely hope no team will gamble on squeezing agri in first and be paid off for their irresponsible gamble... I'd have prefered it if it were a more explicit order to go poly first.

Anyway, poly-agri for tech I suppose. Then we may go masonry, BW or even AH, we'll see after a first set. Given poly first, we may have to think whether worker first is really the way to go. If we settle stone or marble a worker takes 10 turns, but poly takes about 12 so agri wouldn't be in until turn 20 or so. So meanwhile a worker could only mine. Not useless, but maybe growing to size 2 first with a warrior might be better. Stuff for testing.
 
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