SGOTM 03 - Murky Waters

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The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Version
Your team will play this map in Civilization IV version 1.61, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 1.61. This is currently HOF_Mod-1.61.008, but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of December 1st.

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



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

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.
  
• BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space 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.

Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun.

Woo-hoo!!! Here we go.
Checking in.
Feel free to post all your thoughts on strategy on how best to win this one. I don't think we will win the laurels (again) - but as there are separate laurels for Vanilla and Warlords we may be in with a chance
@cas: are you ok with playing this one in Vanilla? It seems to be the preferred option. We can play the next one in Warlords if everyone is agreeable (assuming we don't all fall out in this one......)
My thoughts on this one:
- with 17 aggressive AIs, I am inclined to go for Space Race rather than Diplomacy. Diplomacy could give a faster victory but keeping enough AIs on side could be very tricky. With 17 civs the tech rate should be pretty fast
- early expansion (by force if necessary) to claim as much land as poss will be important to prvide the base for our science powerhouse
- early exploration to meet everyone quickly, and early alphabet for tech trading will be vital to get our tech off to a good start
- 'no city razing' seems a key rule to bear in mind when we are warmongering
- Oracle, GLib, GLight and possibly parthenon will be important early wonders on this map
Should be fun!!

Roster (reverse of SGOTM2, as I'm fed up of sorting out Murky's mistakes.... ):
Murky
nfora
Mitiu
jpc
cas
LowtherCastle
BP
Approx 20 turns 1st set, 15 turns 2nd set, 10-12 turns thereafter. In the early game play to the next 'decision point' (if it is only 6 or 7 turns you can carry on after group discussion )

If no 'got it' is posted for 48h, the next player on the roster may 'get it' If you are away or can't play, arrange for swaps or skips

EDIT: Added in an index of turnsets for reference of anyone foolish enough to try to wade through this thread:

If we are going for space race, land becomes key. Above all else, we must get as much land as possible on a map of this size. A couple of early wars will be essential to our development (by the time maces become obsolete I'd like to see us have 2-3 good cities on any other AI). I've been playing tests with this kind of map, and I've found that there can be a lot of variation in the landmasses. We could be very isolated, or very crowded. Rapid exploration followed by rapid early expansion seems key, assuming we have room for that many good cities. We will need an early production center as well.
The capitol has a good amount of food, but is also fairly commerce rich. I don't think we need to decide what to do with it until we do some more exploring though. (Settle in place btw)

Just checking in.

Not sure of a strategy yet. I think someone did come up with a practice save. I'd like to try that out and see what we can come up with.

Wa hey, this one should be good.

BP can you edit your first post with a turn list, it's easy to refer to then as we know it's always on page one!

I played the save Murky provided and got a SS victory early 1900s. Agree that expansion is vital.

With regard to capital position I would like to see what is to the East first, then NW. I would like to settle somewhere to get the hills in but only if there is seafood to the East. Otherwise settle in place.

johnpaulcain said:

BP can you edit your first post with a turn list, it's easy to refer to then as we know it's always on page one!

Click to expand...

done

johnpaulcain said:

With regard to capital position I would like to see what is to the East first, then NW. I would like to settle somewhere to get the hills in but only if there is seafood to the East. Otherwise settle in place.

Click to expand...

I agree - also it would be a pity to settle on a flood plain. If our scout moves 1E initially (and then if necessary 1S) it will show us if there is seafood on the east coast. Production from our start is likely to be poor

johnpaulcain said:

Wa hey, this one should be good.

BP can you edit your first post with a turn list, it's easy to refer to then as we know it's always on page one!

I played the save Murky provided and got a SS victory early 1900s. Agree that expansion is vital.

With regard to capital position I would like to see what is to the East first, then NW. I would like to settle somewhere to get the hills in but only if there is seafood to the East. Otherwise settle in place.

Click to expand...

I'm glad to see that you got it to work.

I think we should go BW->Fishing

Build order: worker->wb>settler/warrior

The initial site won't have great production unless we discover copper or iron nearby. We should try to get writting and a library early for a GS pop. It would also be good to get Alphabet early to begin tech trading.

Just checking in. Vanilla is fine. Haven't really given the map much thought yet, as I'm still quite involved in WOTM-3.

I did look at the start position, and settling in place seems to be right...lose resources or sea access if you move. Diplo would be faster, but only the cheap way by conquest and voting yourself in...not by keeping other civs happy. I don't agree with wasting time/production on any wonders unless we have access to marble or stone with forests for chopping. We should spend our resources expanding, conquesting for AI cities, and meeting as many other civs as possible.

cas

cas said:

Just checking in. Vanilla is fine. Haven't really given the map much thought yet, as I'm still quite involved in WOTM-3.

I did look at the start position, and settling in place seems to be right...lose resources or sea access if you move. Diplo would be faster, but only the cheap way by conquest and voting yourself in...not by keeping other civs happy. I don't agree with wasting time/production on any wonders unless we have access to marble or stone with forests for chopping. We should spend our resources expanding, conquesting for AI cities, and meeting as many other civs as possible.

cas

Click to expand...

If we want to go for a diplomacy win, let's not do it the cheap way. Figuring out how to convince enough AIs to vote for us would be a good way to get better.

nfora said:

If we want to go for a diplomacy win, let's not do it the cheap way. Figuring out how to convince enough AIs to vote for us would be a good way to get better.

Click to expand...

Also with no city razing, it will be difficult to get enough votes without pushing us over the domination limit if we go for 'conquest diplomacy'
I wonder if we can manipulate the permanent alliances feature to help us reach either of the victory conditions?

I think Diplomacy is almost impossible with 17 civs to be honest.

I dont even think it's worth considering due to the fact that no city razing is in play. We would have to go to war with too many civs to gain a large enough share of the vote and warring will get us negative diplomacy with other civs.

I really think it would be foolish to try for Diplomacy to be fair, but thats just IMHO!

The no raze option might help break a few people from being so raze happy

Seriously, we should keep all options on the table a the start of game. Once we have more information on the map and our rivals then make a choice. We're going to have capture some cities no matter what goal we aim for.

Just because you can't raze doesn't mean you couldn't achieve diplomacy through domination. Controlling most of the votes might be faster to achieve than the space race.

Mmmm, interesting. I suppose you are right. We should wait and see what the map is like.

We need a clear strategy but this doesn't necessarily mean a pre-determined strategy as you say.

It is not worth discussing which type of victory yet I suppose. We did this in SGOTM2 and I think we got ahead of ourselves thinking wat ifs without concentrating on what we had.

First things first, opening strategy! I think move settler 1E then 1 SE and scout 1E then 1NE then post a screenshot and decide where to settle.

I suppose this means not much more chat for a couple of days! What would be really useful is if we could get a clear idea of what techs GPs will get us. I have started a list but it's pretty hard to follow. Anyone done anything goos with excel?

johnpaulcain said:

Mmmm, interesting. I suppose you are right. We should wait and see what the map is like.
We need a clear strategy but this doesn't necessarily mean a pre-determined strategy as you say.

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure - what could the map reveal that would influence our choice of victory condition? And we have to decide pretty early on, as trading with the wrong civs will greatly influence our chances of Diplo victory. I suggest plan for a SS victory - but if it appears a Diplo victory is do-able and could be brought home early then we can always modify our plans. A domination diplo win is possible I suppose, but we would have to be very careful about tripping the domination limit. Of course we can always gift away cities to improve relations.

johnpaulcain said:

It is not worth discussing which type of victory yet I suppose. We did this in SGOTM2 and I think we got ahead of ourselves thinking wat ifs without concentrating on what we had.

Click to expand...

... and there was only 1 type of victory possible in SGOTM2

johnpaulcain said:

First things first, opening strategy! I think move settler 1E then 1 SE and scout 1E then 1NE then post a screenshot and decide where to settle.

Click to expand...

I would not be keen to move the settler if it loses us a turn or 2 and we still end up settling in place. Perhaps scout 1E then 1S would give us sufficient info (ie is there fish to the east)

johnpaulcain said:

I suppose this means not much more chat for a couple of days! What would be really useful is if we could get a clear idea of what techs GPs will get us. I have started a list but it's pretty hard to follow. Anyone done anything goos with excel?

Click to expand...

This thread lists them all

Murky said:

The no raze option might help break a few people from being so raze happy

Click to expand...

Who, me???? I suspect the no raze option will only serve to emphasize the benefits of city razing

Big Pig said:

Who, me???? I suspect the no raze option will only serve to emphasize the benefits of city razing

Click to expand...

There are certainly some pros and cons to razing cities. The pros are that it keeps maintenance cost down and frees up troops for taking other cities. The cons to razing are that you lose whatever population, buildings and resources that city provides. In some cases you might lose something that is not replaceable like a holy shrine or wonder. You might also be giving up a strategic advantage.

Hi team !!

Hmmm ... I still belive that a Diplomatic Victory is doable - using our cossacks to spear fear against the other civs may bring us votes from surviving civs - no ?

Regards

Mîtiu Ioan;4806570 said:

using our cossacks to spear fear against the other civs may bring us votes from surviving civs - no ?

Click to expand...

Umm - how? What did you have in mind?

Big Pig said:

Umm - how? What did you have in mind?

Click to expand...

Make alliance with 2-3 AIs and start war/eliminate some other. This way I belive that we could have some trustfull allies when the UN vote will came ...

However - this will be long after. First time we should think to a plan for the first 20 turns. Should every of us try to wrote such a plan and then the "opening players" try to summarize the suggestion ?

Mîtiu Ioan;4808074 said:

Make alliance with 2-3 AIs and start war/eliminate some other. This way I belive that we could have some trustfull allies when the UN vote will came ...

Click to expand...

Ok, that could work (I presume you don't mean a Permanent Alliance' as that could tip us over the domination limit). If we go for Diplo we need to be quite clear about which civs we ally and trade with

Mîtiu Ioan;4808074 said:

However - this will be long after. First time we should think to a plan for the first 20 turns. Should every of us try to wrote such a plan and then the "opening players" try to summarize the suggestion ?

Click to expand...

Sounds very sensible. I'm especially interested to hear the experiences of anyone who has played through the test games or a game with similar settings