SGOTM2 Germany - Team Handy

SGOTM2 Game Thread

Welcome to your game thread for SGOTM2-Germany

Here is the start position.


Each team has their own save file. Please download and play from the correct save. If you use the wrong save the server will not accept your submission. Also, please make sure that the software version is correct. PM me immediately if it is not.

You can download your save file >>HERE<<.

The Roster
coletite
Handy900
Oddible
Ted Jackson
Tinkez
maharaja

Hello Team!

I'm looking forward to this game, we'll have fun with this, I'm sure

I think we should discuss our goal of the game. What victory type should we aim for? Are you guys war-mongers or builders or something there between? I consider myself somewhere there between. I prefer early wars to secure good secure location and then re-evaluate the situation.

As the map shape is continents, I think we should try conquer the starting continent as early as possible with early expansion and well picked wars against the nearest neighbours.

Shall we keep the roster in the order MB has set for us or does anyone want change it? I'll be out of town middle of next week for three days, so if you play slow enough, then I'll be back just for my turn, but otherwise I could move up in the roster.

-Tinkez

I am looking forward to this as well. This being my first SG, I would prefer NOT going first. Somewhere toward the end (or even dead last) would be fine by me.

I've been focusing my playing style on balancing between warmongering and building. I also have been trying to use civ traits to the full advantage. Tehrefore, since we are militaristic early wars to secure the starting continent is my vote. First early leader forms army so we can build Heroic Epic. Subsequent leaders split between forming armies and wonder production. Speaking of which, since we are also scientific, making sure we get the science wonders would boost the trait's effectiveness. This all, however, is much further down the line.

Would it be beneficial to decide on a victory goal now, or wait until we get more information (map, opponents, etc.)?

Hello all and welcome to the team! This will be large fun.

I firmly believe Max asked me to host the game based on experience running a Succession Game, not for playing ability.

I play for fun. I enjoy the strategic discussion that takes place in SG’s and it has enhanced my playing ability immensely.

Suggestion Since we do not want the wooden spoon, please honestly pipe up about playing experience so we can set a good order. Coletite Thanks for your honesty. I put you last, and put Ted before you and I play after you. Don’t fret. You will learn a lot and have fun in the process. Tinkez If you prefer 3rd, pipe up, and Oddible can switch if he wants to.

Play Order edit 5-22-04
1. Handy
2. Tinkez
3. Oddible
4. maharaja
5. Ted
6. Coletite


Here are the game parameters:
Civ: Germans
Difficulty: Monarch
Map size: Standard
Map shape: Continents
Barbarians: Raging Horde
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Age: 4 Billion Years
Game: All victories; Restarting players off
Opponents (F10)
Russia - |Sci. & Exp.| BW & P | Cossacks
France - |Com. & Ind.| M & A| Muskets
England - |Exp. & Com.| A & P| MOW
Japan - |Rel. & Mil.| CB & W| Sams
India - |Com. & Rel.| CB & A| Dumbos
China - |Mil. & Ind.| WC & M| Riders

Opening Play
I’d favor settling on the spot, road & mine both BG’s. That’s 20 worker turns. (G;RRR;MMMMMM,G,RRR,MMMMMM). Build 3 warrior scouts & then chop a granary. If we settle & worker movement reveals some additional bonus, the worker moves may change. Research Pottery @ 100% to get it in 14. Then we can chop a granary. At monarch I would normally go for a settler flood, but raging barbarians will cause us to provide escorts for all settlers. We will have to watch F3 to see which city an uprising is nearby. Our early game goal should be to grab lands until the continent is set. The we can attack our weakest neighbor.

I’ll play later today or Sunday to give everyone a chance to post comments. I don’t think I can lose it in 20 turns.

VARIANT
I’d recommend we play this straight up. This would be a hard long Always War game. The mini map suggests we are in the middle of the continent, Fighting a two front war with raging barbarians would make this a looooooong game. I’m in if you all want to do it, but it will be very difficult, at least an Emperor Plus or “Deity Light” level game in difficulty.

Victory Goal Given we are scientific, and have Panzers, Domination or conquest seems appropriate. As long as it is no diplo, I don't really care. Space shots are fun, but can get a boring towards the end on monarch level since we will be so far ahead.

SGOTM etiquette (blatantly plagiarized from Mad-Bax & Greebley)

Don’ts
Don’t automate workers.
Don’t use city governors.
Don’t leave units on go-to orders that extend beyond your set of turns.
Don’t change build orders wholesale on your inherited turn.
Don't leave significant units like leaders fortified. Other problems are things like workers fortified in town, boats fortified, etc. I prefer the “Y” key to place units in border cities on sentry. If AI units approach that you do not have an ROP with, the unit wakes up, alerting you to the AI’s presence (Very important when at war so you notice attacks away from the front).
Don't ruin our reputation by breaking trades without the teams permission. This is a biggie. At monarch we will have the AI paying us insane levels of gold when we get to the modern age. I've gotten 300+ GPT trades for ToE Industrial Techs.

DO
DO be polite and constructive on you comments on game play. (if your sentence starts: "Who was the goober-nose that ... ", or “WTF…”; its a bad sign).
DO ask for a “skip” if real Life (RL) gets in the way of playing. Ask to be skipped, or play your turns on time. Please don't just go missing in action.
DO finish all your turns and upload the game saved at the END of the last turn.
DO follow the GOTM Rules
DO stick rigidly to the saved game naming convention. HANDY_SG002_BC4000_02.sav; HANDY_SG002_BC3000_02.sav; etc.
DO include the turn number and the in-game date for each turn in your log. Note: you receive the game at turn 0
DO include reasons you made wholesale changes to city build orders (definitely called for in certain circumstances – like war. Usually however these circumstances are discussed - such as a decision to go to war.). Just supply a good reason for your decision in the log. The player before you may learn something new. One of the key points of succession games is that people do have different ways of playing, which teaches one different ways of approaching the game.
DO include a “NOTES” summary at the end of the turn log that communicates your intentions. (Where is that galley going?)
DO please post your score at the end of your turn. (SGOTM "DO" only)
DO read any previous discussion and the previous players turn. (Hopefully the previous player summarized very important parts in the final notes). This will avoid having good plans started by one player continuing with the next.
DO check F1 each turn to make sure cities will not riot next turn.
DO stop in the middle of your turns, post a save and ask for the team’s opinion if you are unsure what to do. Say the Zulu are demanding tribute, the team plans to eventually attack the Zulu, but you are not sure we are ready yet. Post a save if you want some help. I have learned a lot this way. If something comes up during your turn which is a difficult decision, then it is completely appropriate to stop playing so a discussion can occur on the best path to follow.
DO aks players why they did something you don't understand. That's how we all learn & get bnetter.
Do feel free to explain in your post why you did something. Also feel free to ask players to comment on your decisions. Such as, I'm not sure if I should do X or Y, I chose X because of ___, was this okay?
DO forgive Handy for Typos

Let’s get ready to Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmble

coletite said:

First early leader forms army so we can build Heroic Epic. Subsequent leaders split between forming armies and wonder production. Speaking of which, since we are also scientific, making sure we get the science wonders would boost the trait's effectiveness.

Click to expand...

I think it depends on when we get the leader. The Pyramids are soooo powerful I hate to pass them up if I have an early leader.

Since we are militaristic, I recommend Sir Pleb's excellent article on
Leader fishing if you have no read it yet. He makes some interesting points about the effectiveness of the Heroic Epic in the early game (non AW game). When it makes sense, when it does not. Building wonders that place a building in each city (SZ, Pyramids) or have an effect on each city (Smith's) just so powerful. Pyramids are almost unfair in a human players hands. Almost

Cool.

I win regularly on regeant (no losses, but a lot of incomplete games as I've tried to refine various parts of my strategy). I just started playing on Monarch and haven't completed a game yet.

One point of claification- when I finish my turns, I save just before hitting "done" on my 10th turn? Likewise, when I start, the first thing I will do (after checking out hte way things stand) is hit "done?" Just want to get this out of the way early.

I'm all for a domination/conquest victory. I've been trying to remain balanced between war and building. That is, some games I'll go for a space race, others will be conquest. My weakest point (that I'm aware of) is fighting protracted wars with opponents on other continents. So this could be a good learning experience for me.

On the conquest subject- is an early win out of the question? I know we don't get Panzers until MA. We may not even want to go for an early win, but it has been my experience that once you hit MA, whether or not winning is inevitable is already decided and it can get a bit dull running giant stacks of artillary and tanks across the map against riflemen and infantry. Just my .02

I can play as second player, so the roster looks fine by me.

The leaders are a difficult one and if our strategy will be to expand as much as possible without wars, then it might take while before we get our first leader. At that point the forbidden palace is also a good choice as the first leader usage. That way we'll get second core easily (assuming we get that leader )

I also recommend settling on the spot, though move the worker first (to east?) and see if something great appears and act accordingly.

@Handy: You can start playing and then after we'll see a bit more of the map, we can make more detailed plans. Your first 20 turns plan looks ok to me. Just leave me a nice spot to continue (not like 20+ barbarians next to our capital )

-Tinkez

@Handy- is it possible for you to post a screen cap after you settle?

coletite said:

@Handy- is it possible for you to post a screen cap after you settle?

Click to expand...

Absolutely.

One point of claification- when I finish my turns, I save just before hitting "done" on my 10th turn? Likewise, when I start, the first thing I will do (after checking out hte way things stand) is hit "done?" Just want to get this out of the way early

Click to expand...

Yes, that is exactly how to play it. Sometimes you might notice something before you hit enter on the inherited turn that needs to be done.

On the conquest subject- is an early win out of the question? I know we don't get Panzers until MA. We may not even want to go for an early win, but it has been my experience that once you hit MA, whether or not winning is inevitable is already decided and it can get a bit dull running giant stacks of artillary and tanks across the map against riflemen and infantry. Just my .02

Click to expand...

I win regularly on regeant (no losses, but a lot of incomplete games as I've tried to refine various parts of my strategy). I just started playing on Monarch and haven't completed a game yet.

Click to expand...

By the end of this game you will know how to smoke Monarch.

The game should be over, or in heavy mop up mode before we get to tanks, unless of course we decide to go for a space shot. I win about 90% of the time via domination or conquest. I don't play alot of games with Raging Barbs, but I'd expect a sword war, then during knights we gain total control our continent. Cavalry + rails + artillery will clean out the AI on the other size. If we actually build a panzer we may get the wooden spoon. Ugh.

Unless we have a really poor staring spot (unlikly in a former GOTM) we should be able to out settle the AI. After that we'll get aquainted with the neigbors.

4000 BC
Moved worker east to the BG and settled on the spot after i saw the forest game tile. Then I settled and saw wheat on plains to the northwest.

[dance] Official Settler Factory for us.

Chop and irrigate the game, irrigate the wheat & we have 5 extra food in the home city after border expansion.

Pottery is due in 14 @ 100% research. I'll mine & road the BG. Next I'll chop & Irrigate the Game. The chop will go towards a granary. I'll build 3 warriors before the granary. The next couple of players can mine & road the other BG, then irrigate the wheat and we will be in business.

May need a couple more warriors if barbs show up, but that's the plan.

Play Order (unless we switch Tinkez & Oddible)
1. Handy <-playing, will post Saturday night.
2. Tinkez
3. Oddible <- needs to check in
4. Ted <- Where are you.
5. Coletite

SGOTM2 team handy
Turn 0 4000 BC
Move worker east to the BG.
Found Berlin.

Moved worker east to the BG and settled on the spot after i saw the forest game tile. Then I settled and saw wheat on plains to the northwest.
Official Settler Factory for us. Once we have chopped and irrigated the game & wheat, we will have 5 extra food in the home city.

Set build to warrior & select pottery is due in 14 @ 100% research. I'll mine & road the BG . Next I'll chop & Irrigate the Game. The chop will go towards a granary. I'll build 3 warriors before the granary. The next couple of players can mine & road the other BG, then irrigate the wheat and we will be in business. If the water N of the wheat is a lake, it will save us having to drag water up to the wheat.

May need a couple more warriors if barbs show up, but that's the plan.


Turn 1 3950 BC
Worker starts a mine.

Turn 2 3900


Turn 3 3850


Turn 4 3800


IBT (In Between Turns)
Berlin -> warrior -> warrior

Turn 5 3750
Warrior moves N onto the mountain. His name is Franz & he will explore north

Turn 6 3700
The water N of the wheat is a fresh water lake

IBT
Mine completes

Turn 7 3650
Worker starts road.
Franz is staying on the mountains moving N.
Two [Ivory] spotted NW of the wheat.

Turn 8 3600
Spot river NW of the ivory.

Turn 9 3550
Franz finds the ocean to the N
Hanz heads due W to the mountains, then he will mountain hop to the south.

Turn 10 3500
Borders expand. The border expansion reveals spices 3 tiles (S-S-SW) of Berlin.
Road completes. Move to the game to chop it.

Turn 11 3450
Exploring

Turn 12 3400
Exploring


Turn 13 3350
Exploring.

IBT
Pottery -> I decided on the Wheel since no one else starts with it. I hope we can trade for the other stuff. Research is at 100% due in 18. I always like to know where the ponies are. After this maybe IW.
Berlin –> warrior -> warrior

Turn 14 3300
Explore

Turn 15 3250
Johann is moving E and spots wheat.

Turn 16 3200
Explore

Turn 17 3150
Lots of Jungle to the south. Good land North & land East. Lots of mountains to the west.
Have not seen any barbs or huts yet.
Berlin is undefended in case you were wondering.

Turn 18 3100
North looks good. Fresh water, plains, cows, Ivory, Grasslands

Turn 19 3050
Explore
Flood plains & wheat to the east.

Turn 20 3000
Berlin grows, so the slider needs an adjustment to keep the people happy.

Notes:
Watch growth in Berlin to make sure you do not have happiness problems. Check F1, our gola is no wasted turns due to revolts all game long.

The worker finishes the chop next turn. He should then irrigate & build a road on the game. After that he can move to the other BG, road & Mine it, then irrigate & road the wheat.

During this time you can build a spears to act as military police in Berlin. Normally I’d build warriors for this, but with raging barbs we probably want spears. You can build a barracks in 4 turns. I’d do it, but it’s debatable.
Next city spot is open to debate. I like due south of the western most Elephant. This places it next to fresh water. It can build veteran spears to escort our settlers, and provide a luxury. When it grows to big we can peel off a worker, then go back to building more spears.
I think we should keep Franz heading north and Hanz heading south. Hopefully they can make contact & do some trades. Johann can move clockwise along the black area to reveal the lands near our capital.
Our growth is going to explode when the settler factory is complete.

Any questions fire away. I’m going to upload our file using the SGOTM upload thread. If I have any problems, I’ll post an attachment later.

Be sure to use the SGOTM file name convention for your saves.
The 3000 BC file is named HANDY_SG002_BC3000_02.sav

Everyone plays 10 turns from now on.

Good Luck
Play Order (unless we switch Tinkez & Oddible)
1. Handy <- just played.
2. Tinkez <- UP
3. Oddible <- needs to check in. I sent a PM.
4. Ted <- needs to check in. I sent a PM.
5. Coletite

One final request. If you post a wide screenshot, do it in a separate post, that way readers don’t have to scroll back & forth to read your text log. Chopped down screenshots are okay to embed in your turn log.

Oh, almost forgot – our score is 69.

Here is the save. Good Luck Tinkez!

Save 3000 BC

The world as qwe know it in 3000 BC.

The red dot looks good. How likely is it that our nearest opponent is to the NW? Do we want to concentrate on expanding toward our neighbors to grab land away from them or is it still too early to worry about that?

Also, what is our general strategy for city placement? Personally, I don't care for RCP. If we are going for a heavy military game then ICS may be an option.

One more question: how do I add images? Is there a link that has good information on drawing on screen caps? I tried Paint, but it didn't turn out to well.

The red dot looks good. How likely is it that our nearest opponent is to the NW? Do we want to concentrate on expanding toward our neighbors to grab land away from them or is it still too early to worry about that?

Click to expand...

I think we'll have at least 1 AI to the north & 1 to the south. There are 6 AI's in the game + us, so we'll have at least 2 on our continent, maybe 3. Perhaps 1 NW of us, and maybe 1 SE and 1 SW.

Early on I usually settle the best "core" sites first around the capital to get production up. Exceptions for luxuries & resources. I grab those before the AI does. In this game we want the best land so we can grow quickly, which is NE & NW so far. Further exploration may change our plans.

Also, what is our general strategy for city placement? Personally, I don't care for RCP. If we are going for a heavy military game then ICS may be an option.

Click to expand...

We don't want a pure ICS, which is cities space 1 tile apart. I think 3 tiles between as a general rule works well on Monarch (CxxxCxxxC) in a standard map. Notice there are 3 tiles from Berlin to the red dot. If this was a Huge or Big map I'd go for 4 tiles between cities. Three tiles apart allows cities to grow to work 12 tiles. We won't build hospitals in this game if we go the miltary route, so size 12 is as big as we will get. I'm actually a big fan of pure RCP for less corruption. I rarely get it perfect since a luxury or a mountain or a lake screws it up. Once I learned it, I couln't "unlearn" it, so I just use it. Typically an ICS like build of CxxCxxC would be for an Always War game. Two tile distance allows you to "chain" units from city to city to reinforce. Check out the the T_McC of HNDY02 links in my signature for examples of 2 tile AW builds. Since we will not always be at war, 3 is better for us in this game.

One more question: how do I add images?

Click to expand...

Here is how I do screen shots.
1. Hit the "Prt Scrn" key to place a screen shot on the PC's clipboard.
2. Open Microsoft Paint.
3. In MS paint, click "Edit" then "Paste". This should put the screen shot into paint.
3. Save the screenshot as a Jpeg. Name it something like "HANDY_SG002_BC3000_02.jpg"
4. At the very bottom of the forum page, click on "Upload File".
5. Browse, attach the file, and click upload to send the .jpg file to the server.
6. When the upload is complete you will see a box that says "upload Confirmation" Click on the link that says "Veiw New Upload Folder 7" This takes you to all the files loaded in chronological order. The file you just loaded will be at the top since it is in last loaded chronological order.
7. Right Click and select "Copy Shortcut".
8. In the forum select "Post a Reply" There are some Icons above the box where you type your reply. Click the box that says "IMG". Paste in the "shortcut" (the pictures URL address) in the box. Make sure the box does not say "http://" two times.
9. When you click "OK" the link should appear in the bottom of your post and look like this with out the quotation marks and extra "*" I put in.
"[*IMG]http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/uploadpic.JPG[/IMG*]"

Thanks Handy, I appreciate it.

I like the idea of spacing cities 3 tiles apart. If we want to go the RCP route, that's fine by me. What about temporary cities between our core cities to build units then disband when our core cities need the tiles? I've never done this, but I read about. My thoughts are that it would be a good strategy for crowded maps, but right now we need to expand outward and by the time we can afford to use settlers in that way the core cities will be needing the tiles. Just thinking out loud, sorry.

As for locations, the NE will probably not be settled by rivals for a long time. The south has too much jungle to be profitable right now. As you mentioned, the red dot has access to fresh water and that ivory will help keep us from needing MPs or the lux slider.

What about our over-all science strategy? Do we want to build up science revenue fairly quickly? Or should we focus on economy and purchase techs? Since we are scientific it would be a waste not to build libraries, etc. These would also give us our culture without needing many religous improvements. Maybe we should focus on researching techs the AI isn't likely to place a high priority on and using them to trade for the others until we get far enough ahead to research what we need. (This may be a given, so excuse me if I'm pointing out the obvious.)

Checking in. Howdy all!

Looks like we got a lot of map in 20 turns. Excellent. Agree on the 2nd city, maybe third goes sw of the grain to our east? Bummer the spice is in the jungle. Looks like our growth is going to be nw, ne and s, with nw being the most promising. I'd even consider sending Johann out a few more tiles to see if we can spot a neighbor over there to the east.

I've never been a fan of armies so I almost always use leaders for hurry. Unless there isn't a wonder around to be made and it's the beginning of a war where we expect to get other leaders, I usually wait on armies.

Holding our own in science shouldn't be too difficult - love those cheap libraries! Barracks too. I'm not typically a warmonger but the last few games I've played have see some bloodlust. A huge fan of the early strike on the nearest neighbor (or the one that has our iron of course).

Good to be playing with y'all - looking forward to it!

I got the save. I'll play my turns this afternoon, first I'll just list here some thoughts what I'll do during my turns.

Berlin has granary coming up in 2 turns (3 shields short to finish in 1 turn )as the worker will finish the forest chop in 1 turns. After that Handy suggested to build barracks, but I think we should build a spear just in case as all of our warriors are far away from the city. If a barb appears, he might pillage the production of the undefended city. We can play gamble also, if you guys want that. Any suggestions?

when the defensive unit is built, I'll start a settler to being our factorys production When the settler is finished, the protective unit will escort him to new city place to ensure safe travels.

I'll report back after my turns, and check this thread before I start playing if you have any comments before that. "Los geht's" as the germans would say...

-Tinkez

Either way is ok with me. One option is to start barracks & switch to spear if a barb shows up. You may have to dump some shields if this happens.

Perhaps better is regular spears to escort the first few settlers, until we can build veteran spears in the 2nd and 3rd cities we will be founding. You may have to build spears after the first settler as escorts. Settler / spear / settler / spear rotation. We'll need another worker soon also.

Getting good land, building roads to our 2 luxuries, and making some trading contacts is more important than veteran spears at this point.

The more I think about it, the more I think it is a good plan to skip the barracks. Build spear / settler, send both to found a city. Build another spear / settler, send both, etc. If a barb arrives while Berlin is building a spear, you won't lose much production.
Good plan Tinkez

Once the additional cities can build spears, Berlin can then just build settlers.

At some point we can move the regular spears back to cities deep within our borders to act as military police. Later, we will want at least 2, maybe 3 veteran spears or swords in the cities on the edge of our border to fight the barbarian uprisings. I have seen 16 barb horsemen attack all at once in a massive rebellion. Checking F3 each turn can tip us off and allow us to move troops to fight the barbarioan hordes.

Welcome Oddible - you are up after Tinkez

Oddible said:

Checking in. Howdy all!

I'd even consider sending Johann out a few more tiles to see if we can spot a neighbor over there to the east.

Click to expand...

Yes, it looks like there is a mountain SE of Johann next to the hill. He is so close to those he may as well climb them to see what turns up. If it is a mountain range he can mountain hop in a counterclockwise trend.

Here are my 10 turns:

IBT: Worker finishes forest chop, MM production in Berlin to complete granary in 1 turn.

2950BC(1): Worker begins irrigation on game tile. Hanz moves south to the hill and sees brown borders. That must be Catharine.

IBT: Berlin granary->barracks. Let's gamble.

2900BC(2): Johann finds Incence on a hill. Hanz moves to the mountain top hoping to establish contact without entering Russian land. He sees ivory linked up, but no town/units. MM Berlin to complete barracks in 4 turns and get +2 food. Wheel drops from 13 turns to 8 turns -> someone has it now.

IBT:Nothing.

2850BC(3):Catharine has Masonry. Can't trade anything with her.

IBT:Worker finishes irrigation.

2750BC(4):Nothing special (Catharine just got her second city somewhere.)

IBT:Berlin completes barracks -> spear.

2710BC(5):Explorers move forward, see nothing special.

IBT:

2670BC(6):Franz is exploring lot of mountains, I think the north of the continent is behind the mountains.

IBT:Worker finishes road, Berlin grows to size 4.

2630BC(7):MM Berlin back to normal, get spear in 1 turn at the cost of -1 food. Accept this. Wheel in 3 turns. Franz confirms north end of continent is found. Hanz is moving along russian borders and finds a hut next to them! Will pop it next turn... Hoping for a settler

IBT: German safe is almost empty, but as the spear completes, I'm able to press the lux slider back and get wheel in 2 turns with +1gpt. Berlin begins work on settler.

2590BC(8):Hanz pops the hut and gets a map which reveals purple borders SW of russian borders! That must be Jean just next to Catharine! The Russian / French region looks very good, lots of floodplains with furs, wheat and cattle nearby... Needs an invasion after their cities are found there

IBT: Catharine gets CB.

2550BC(9):Nothing special.

IBT: Wheel complete. Start IW at 10% as it would be the same with 40%.

2510BC(10): Last turn. Now I could make some deals with the wheel, but I'd rather first see what Joan has to offer (Catharine offers 2gp for it ) Next player can squeeze a tech out of Joan

The stage is all yours. Our score is 79 (Russia has 92). Berlin is 2 turns to size 5 and 3 turns to settler.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Tinkez_SG002_BC2510_01.SAV

-Tinkez