SGOTM 04 - Smurkz

Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 4 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
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.08 only.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.08.003 for Windows. There are insufficient Mac players to form a Mac team. so it will be played in Windows only.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of February 23.

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



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Ragnar of The Vikings
Rivals - 7 civs including Gandhi (who is locked in war with Ragnar)
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, cylindrical, medium sea level, temperate
Game Speed - Epic
Diplomatic Victory Disabled
All other settings are defaults

Notes

• Please visit the C-IV Warlords SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• Warlords v.2.08 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the 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.
  
• Awards will be given to teams who achieve Space defeats to India 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

Signing up. Looking forward to giving SGOTM9 a try!

Edit: That's odd. I hit refresh three times before the Smurkz team thread appeared and I than immediately posted here. Yet, it shows the thread opening fourteen minutes prior to my post.

Just checking in but as some of you may know I am up and (should be at least) playing real soon now
In any case I *think* saves are still not available (where the hell is this server ) so I should probably go to bed now.

Really looking forward for this new old-flavour SGTOM with the Smurkz team

unkle said:

Really looking forward for this new old-flavour SGTOM with the Smurkz team

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm really hoping all of our SGOTM9 teammates at least look in on us and help out. I'm really looking forward to doing this one again.

Unfortunately I'm in class right now, so I can't offer my opinions on our strategy.

@Methos: Yes, 15 minutes sounds about like the time it took me to create fifteen copies of the original master version.

@unkle: The server currently believes the time is 19:17, so it's at GMT - 5 hours. The saves will be available in under five hours from the time of this post.

@AlanH:
Glad to know the server timezone, so I can have some sleep...

Morning folks.

lurker's comment: Hi folks, glad to see we got a Smurkz team together for this game as well, we have a title to defend here (the Civ3 SGOTM9 win)! I'll try to drop by and comment when I can, but without Warlords and with two other games in the running... I'm not holding the whip for this one, that's for sure.

Special welcomes to our new smurkz members eldar, DeafDolphin and semolina, glad to have you on board!

And good luck!

yeah, thanks for the warm welcome. i am quite looking forward to this game, and to learn a thing or 2 along the way.

Niklas said:

lurker's comment:
Special welcomes to our new smurkz members eldar, DeafDolphin and semolina, glad to have you on board!

And good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Niklas. Hello, everyone. Blame Methos for dragging me into this, if you please.

Seriously, glad to be here. Let's kick ass.

DeafDolphin said:

Blame Methos for dragging me into this, if you please.

Click to expand...

If I remember right, I think I tried getting you to join SGOTM3 too!

From the looks of it our best bet is to settle in place, but I'm still curious about the surrounding tiles. To the south of us looks like jungle, so moving the scout SW to the hill doesn't seem worth it. If the scout moves NW x2 it'll open a few more tiles, though not many. It appears to the west is forest so that'll block part of his view.

I can't remember off-hand what our starting techs are, so I'm unsure what we should aim for first. I'll download the save shortly and take a look.

Typically the Smurkz team has always done the initial turn order by how we signed up in the thread. In other words the current roster would be:

Roster:
Methos
unkle
Eldar
semolina
DeafDolphin
???
???

Is this okay for everyone? If not just say so, as we can always switch it around if needed. I believe the only players that have never played a succession game before are DeafDolphin and semolina. I seem to recall seeing Eldar when I played SG's. If you have any questions I suggest you read the What is a Succession Game, or just ask us.

BTW, I can play later this evening if everyone is okay with that, other than that I'll have to wait until Sunday as my wife and I are going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit this weekend and I won't have access to CFC. If people prefer I can be moved lower in the order, I don't mind.

Does anyone have any suggestions on our strategy? Any ideas on how best to proceed? I'll check the save in a little bit.

Okay, after looking at the save ...

Settling in Place: From the CC and improved clams, pig, corn, and a lighthouse, we'd have an additional +12 . Plus, the lighthouse would gain an additional +1 for the lake, bringing it to a total of +13 if we worked the lake too. It'll be a while before we have the to support it, but this does look like the best site IMO.

Research: Being financial pottery seems wise, but not if we settle in place. I say skip pottery for a little while. I'm thinking animal husbandry first as it provides two major benefits; increased food and shows us horses. Granted, being at permanent war I'm also tempted to go straight for BW to locate copper.

Queue: I'm thinking WB first for the clams. It'll provide +4 +3 , and follow it with a worker. If we do go WB first it would probably be wiser to work the plains forest first so we can get the WB out in 12 turns.

Any other ideas?

well just a thought since i won't get a chance to play for awhile

due to the fact that all the resources are north of the current position, it might be a good idea to take the northerner position, as there might be more resources to grab.

and since we are playing to lose, should we for example always trade gandhi our techs immediately? but we are always at war with him too, so can we even give him techs?

I say we move north to the other recommended blue circle - if you notice, we'll gain at least 3 more commerce from the ocean when we work them (assuming we ever work them) than if we were to settle in place, while we do not seem to lose any resources by moving. Plus it looks like we might get more hammers as well, assuming there are more hills to the north.

Methos said:

If I remember right, I think I tried getting you to join SGOTM3 too!

Click to expand...

I didn't have the experience then I have now, I'd have been near useless at that point.

lurker's comment: No, we can't give him any tech, that has to come through other means. And in this game there's no tech elevator to fix it with...

semolina said:

and since we are playing to lose, should we for example always trade gandhi our techs immediately? but we are always at war with him too, so can we even give him techs?

Click to expand...

No. We would have to make peace with him to pass along the techs.

Edit: Cross-post with Niklas.

So than, should we move the settler straight N to the forested plains hill to see what we have up north? We don't want to move away from the coast or else we'd lose the ability to work the clams.

Yeah, we'll have to figure out who Gandhi's trading partner is so we can trade them techs. will probably make this a lot harder than it was in . The internet will still be a major wonder we need to let Gandhi capture though. Than we can gift techs to him through it.

Methos said:

So than, should we move the settler straight N to the forested plains hill to see what we have up north? We don't want to move away from the coast or else we'd lose the ability to work the clams.

Click to expand...

Yeah. That spot 2 squares north really looks great from my point of view. If it doesn't turn out to be any good, depending on what's on the other side, we can move back. Worse case, we've only lost 2 turns.

Methos said:

Yeah, we'll have to figure out who Gandhi's trading partner is so we can trade them techs. will probably make this a lot harder than it was in . The internet will still be a major wonder we need to let Gandhi capture though. Than we can gift techs to him through it.

Click to expand...

That'll take a bit, so I say we worry about ourselves first. I suggest going for BW as our first tech, so we can use those forests to speed things up if needed. Plus, Slavery is a useful tool.

lurker's comment:

Niklas said:

lurker's comment: No, we can't give him any tech, that has to come through other means. And in this game there's no tech elevator to fix it with...

Click to expand...

So if Gandhi steals techs via espionage, that is fine (if such can be done in C4W).
No tech elevator? Ouch.

I'll be around for cheerleading and such. I won't have access to C4W until when/if my son comes home for the summer from college. His machine will run C4W; mine is Win98, 500 MHz.

(Now if I wasn't making his truck payment things would be different!)