SGOTM8 - klarius

Welcome to your game thread. Please use it and subscribe to it. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game here, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

The starting saves will become available on the SGOTM Progress and Results page on August 5, midnight, server local time.

Thanks go to Gyathaar for coming up with the variant and developing the map.

The variant is Hydrophobic Conquest. You are America, your goal is to conquer your archipelago world, and you are afraid of water.

The rules are simple:

1. You will build no boats. Seaborne units are all disabled for America.
3. You must win by Conquest. America must be the only civ standing at the end of your game.
4. Red and Gold Laurels will be awarded respectively to the members of the C3C and Classic teams achieving the fastest conquests.
5. PTW and Vanilla teams are not permitted to leader rush Great Wonders before 1000 BC in this game

Here's the start:

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - America
Opponents - Six, preselected
World size - 80 wide by 80 high. (Small)
Difficulty - Emperor
Landform - Archipelago
Barbarians - Raging

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Game mods:
- America can't build boats. The AI can.
- All victory conditions are available except Diplomatic and Spaceship.
- Settlers, workers, scouts, explorers, leaders, cruise missiles and tactical nukes can be loaded into helicopters.
- A side effect is AIs can load tactical nukes into any boat with transport capacity ... so beware
- Bombers have lethal sea bombard only (lethal land bombard removed)
- Cruise missiles, stealth bombers and F-15 have both lethal sea and land bombard.

Additional change:
- C3C will use the same contact and map trading rules as Classic. Contacts can be traded between two civs when one of them knows Writing. Maps can be traded between two civs when one of them knows MapMaking.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included in this game. If you have played SGOTM 7 then you will be ready. If not you may need to download and unzip a small graphics mod pack. Vanilla/Mac players need to install the GOTM mods. The best way to achieve this is to use the relevant All-in-one GOTM Installer for your OS, linked in my signature.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game. Vanilla players in particular should understand the late-game equalisation modifications that we don't often have to worry about.

The GOTM Reference Thread.
SGOTM Reference Thread.

Notes:

A. The Classic (Play the World and vanilla 1.29) versions of Civ3 AND Conquests version 1.22 (C3C) are all supported in this game. Because of the different game play, Classic and C3C teams will play for separate awards.
B. All teams must play the sponsored variant.
C. You MUST play from the start file assigned to your team. 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.

Signing in and starting the discussion:

What rooster are we going to play?
I suggest to start with klarius (he's just soo good with Offa's starting spreadsheet )

After that we could alternate players with lot's of experience and less experience eg:

klarius
Ciceroinan
Megalou
Evil_Kanevil
Ronald
Northern Pike (as soon as available)

We also should agree on some fundamentals like research and initial builds. Any suggestions?

Since we start with pottery, I would try the republic slingshot even if we don't have alphabeth

Ronald

Well, I'm also here .

I will be away for the weekend.
So if we are in a hurry somebody else should start.

It's not easy to say what to build first, a lot depends on the availability of BGs. but generally I tend towards 1-2 warriors then granary.
We would need 2BGs in addition to what we see for a 4-turn 5-7 factory. If none are available we may also think of settler as first build.
Question is also where to settle. Definitely not at the start, that's too much food and to few shields.

SE looks like the strongest position for the first few turns, but if there are BGs in the SW settling S or SW may be better in the long run.

Science towards slingshot is a given IMO. On archipelago this should be possible even with researching alphabet first.

I am in no hurry better to discuss a bit more in the beginning.

Starting definitely not at current place.

Since we have a scout we can send him either SS or SSW or SSE. If SE turns out to be not good. My preference would be S, since I prefer settling on desert over floodplains (desease is sooo damaging in the beginning)

Ronald

Before we jump into the game, I would really appreciate to know my teammates. Therefore, some info about myself:

My name is Ronald Eberhard, I'm 42 years old (yes, that old )
I am Austrian, living at the moment in York, PA in the USA
I have been playing Civ since Civ 1 (played Civ 2, Alpha Centauri and now Civ 3). Civ is the one game I have been playing all over the years and I still play it mainly to relax, but also for a different challenge I face in my job.

Currently I am the president of FES Systems Inc (www.fessystems.com), a company in the industrial refrigeration industry).
Originally, I am an electrical engineer (Technical University of Vienna)

Game play: I am competitive but no perfectionist. I do some micromanagement (letting a city riot is terrible, wasting food is very bad, optimizing shield production is the goal).

I would of course like to win this sgotm, but most important is for me to give the best effort.

Looking forward to getting to know you and getting to know your ideas about game play.

Ronald

Checking in , though it remains the case that I won't be able to play a round until about August 15.

Apart from AW, I haven't played much at difficulty levels below deity, so I don't have strong opinions about our research path. If Ronald and Klarius think the Republic slingshot is appropriate here, that's fine with me.

I played Civ I entirely on the SNES, and Civ II on the Playstation before I got the Windows version, so I've truly suffered for the sake of this game. Civ was a very different experience before the Internet, better in some ways and worse in others. I learned to beat I and II at deity as independently as though I'd been the only player on Earth, which was very satisfying.

My principal interests in the game are exact tactical play and the fast conquests which can be achieved if the player thinks ahead. I'm a fairly serious micromanager. In diplomacy and deals generally I take a zero-sum approach, and prefer to be sure that an agreement isn't going to help the other civ more than my own. I'm particularly skeptical about trading luxuries away in C3C, since they help the MM-challenged AI so much and yet are so meanly valued.

Even though I'm, even a few years older than Ronald, I'm playing Civ3 "only" since 2 years. I played Civ1+2 also for some time (years ), then I deviated in the world of CRPG for a few years.

I was content with being able to win Civ3 any level, with just a bit MM until I started to play GOTM, when I had to note that this style doesn't cut the mustard .

Still I'm not able to really optimise a complete solo game, but in a turn-set in SGOTM, I will check and double-check everything. Tools like:
CivAssist II
or
CRpMapStat
help a lot for that (hint ).

My favourite style of playing is a peaceful build-up until I'm strong enough and then quickly conquer everything on the map. We'll see how it plays out in this variant .

I'm Henrik, 35 years old, from Sweden. My interests are very diverse although as a teacher my main interest is to work with people. Civ is a contrast to that. Like Northern Pike I am very self-centered when playing. I tried Civ I a few times but didn't like it - too young? Civ II was a different matter. But Civ III is the most enjoyable of all thanks to the comparison in GOTMs and of course the improvements, in particular the cultural boundaries.

My style of play is aggressive. Typically, I try to build as many horsemen as possible before I learn Chivalry and upgrade them all to a deadly pack. I almost never build spearmen, since I am confident that I can position my units in such a way that I will do the attacking and not the AI. My biggest interest at the moment lies in how to expand and quickly as possible, and also the question of when to slow down the peaceful expansion and start building an army. However, I am not as scientific in my approach as some players.

I prefer the luxury slider over military police and I rarely let a town go into disorder, unless I'm quenching resisters. I always play with "Show alerts" on in CivAssist II. I micromanage a lot, and I agonize a lot over my decisions.

Observations:

* Looks like silks 3SE.
* I can't see any wheat on the flood plains, but if there is one it would be very valuable for a settler or worker pump. But 1S looks like the best starting position.
* I think our GA should be wonder induced. By the time we have F-15 the tech race should be over and cash not needed.

Bye for now!

Hey. I'm Marcus, a 25-year old Swede and a recently graduated engineer. Enjoying the summer off, just indulging myself in computer games and other non-productive activities (Well I play alot of poker, which *can* be productive.

Played Civ I alot, though I didn't really play Civ II at all... And I'm beginning to get quite familiar with Civ III. I believe I can beat the game at every difficulty level, although I've never finished a Sid game. Like klarius said though, it's much harder to be competitive in the GOTMs, and I really don't have the patience to check and double check and MM everything for 200 turns. I really think we should win this one, and I can live with 20 turns of micromanagement if that's what it takes to get a medal

My playstyle is usually quite aggressive, I like building offense and I hate building defense... Sometimes too aggressive, as I tend to forget things like keeping scientific civs alive so that I can hustle a tech out of them when I enter a new age...

I definitley agree that we should go for the republic slingshot, and just try to race ahead in tech until we get choppers. It would be neat to start a phony war and try to deal our way to a city, although I'm not quite sure how hard it will be to get such a deal without being able to take their cities...

Oh.. by the way, will we be playing Conquests or PTW or vanilla?

/Marcus

Hello evil one!

Some of us voted for Conquests, so I'm sure that's what it will be.

I like the idea to get a foothold on a different continent by means of a peace treaty. It would be easier if an AI placed one, preferably two, early towns on our island so that we can give them a good scare first. If we share our island with another civ it should be a lot easier.


Ready to stomp

Hi Megalou and Evil_Kanevil.

Well, I PMed AlanH that we will play C3C some time ago.
Now that there is early contact and map trading in C3C there is really no reason to go to PtW. If the majority would have some strong feelings about that we could sure still change this, but I don't think so .

To the strategy:
Our first goal has to be to get big and nasty , as always. The question there is, how much dirt we have to work with and if we have a neighbour.
Another thing we will have to decide quite early is, if we want an early GA. In that case we have to set a city aside to build an industrious wonder (pyramids, hanging gardens or great wall). We probably don't get the chance to capture any of these early.
Expansionist is less critical, because there are still some wonders available in MA, but colossus would also be nice to have in a high commerce town.

Then we can see, if we can get overseas cities in peace treaties. There's a small trick for that, we could use to make it more likely:
Gift some cities to an AI civ, then declare and take them back or raze them.
The other thing we need to convince the AI is military strength. That's a bit tricky, because we don't want to pay support for units we don't really need. So our military units should be most effective for the AI military strength calculation. This means the highest available attack rating, e.g. swords instead of horses (if possible). And definitely no defenders except in extreme emergency.

I'm assuming Gyathaar will have given his best effort that not every island can be conquered by this method.
So helicopters may be needed. But for sure not many. The way helicopters are modded (transporting settlers and workers, but not the strongest attack units at that time), they will probably only be used to get a foothold with an airstrip. Then the main force will airlift from everywhere in the empire.

Well, a small technical issue.
Have you all downloaded and installed the SGOTM mod?
It's found in the reference thread or direct link here .
The file has to be unzipped in the Conquests/Scenarios folder.

If you did so, you can try the test file I made up:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SGOTM8_ktest.SAV
and should see the lamb correctly, otherwise you wont see it, but it's still there (right click).

I did a few test starts with that and had to note that in most cases the sophisticated planning was worthless because of disease .
This position really can get us to a pretty slow start and maybe the slingshot is in danger then.

klarius said:

I did a few test starts with that and had to note that in most cases the sophisticated planning was worthless because of disease .
This position really can get us to a pretty slow start and maybe the slingshot is in danger then.

Click to expand...

This is why I hate floodplains.
Does it make any difference if you are on a floodplain, next to a floodplain (like S of our starting position) or just sharing one corner (SE of our starting position). I could not find any info about that.

I like your idea of gifting cities and retake them to increase the chance of getting a foothold on the other continents. Very mean, I have not thought about that before.

As for the slingshot, I still think we should give it a try. If it looks that it could fail, we always can research philosophy before CoL and pick Col as free tech.

Ronald said:

This is why I hate floodplains.
Does it make any difference if you are on a floodplain, next to a floodplain (like S of our starting position) or just sharing one corner (SE of our starting position). I could not find any info about that.

Click to expand...

AFAIK you always have the same danger when you are working a floodplain, either by assigning a laborer in the city view or settle on it. I'm thinking currently of forfeiting some early growth and work the FPs only after the granary is up. Then it's at least not as bad. But really we need to know first what else we have to work with. And there's also the possibilty that the scout finds something so good that we want an early settler.

Ronald said:

As for the slingshot, I still think we should give it a try. If it looks that it could fail, we always can research philosophy before CoL and pick Col as free tech.

Click to expand...

Sure one always tries . And emperor on archipelago the chance still should be good. We just will run a little blind here. We will not have many contacts (maybe none) immediately after we get writing and the map is hand-built whatever that means. Maybe all AI civs on different islands, but so that they can get contact without boats. That's probably what I would have designed for this variant, to make it a bit of a challenge .

Hello guys, Ciceronian signing in.
My name is Christoph and I'm an 18 year-old German, which makes me the youngest member of the team I believe. I'm just waiting for the long summer holidays to pass, so I have time for a good SGotM. I've just finished school and I will be off to study Classics at Cambridge after the holidays.
At the moment I'm on holiday but I will be back home on Sunday and available henceforth without any limitations. So with me and klarius missing, we should probably wait, or change the playing order.
As regards civ I am moderately experienced and can win fairly well on Emperor. I've only been playing for a year, and my many other hobbies and jobs don't permit me too much time to hone my skills. I micromanage to a moderate extent, but I'll probably be far more careful in the SGotM.
I'm afraid I also can't post very much until Sunday thanks to my isolated location, so until then!

Hi Ciceronian,

nice that everybody is more or less on board now.

I just noted in the maintenance thread that midnight of the 5th is meant to be 0:00. So the save should be available tomorrow morning my time.
I should be able to have a look and maybe even play. I don't think we can discuss much more before we know a bit of our surrounding and against what civs we play. So starting it up would be a good thing, after that a bit of discussion would be nice, so if Ciceronian takes it sunday or even monday would be ok.

A few general remarks (with so many SGOTM newbies around):
The usuall rotation is 20 turns for the first player, then everybody takes sets of 10 turns. It's nice to have these even numbers, but that is by no means cast in stone.
If you think a few turns more or less make more sense just do it.
Later in the game when turns may get very long, it's usually best that every player plays just as many turns as time and concentration permits.
It's perfectly ok and nothing to be ashamed of, to stop playing during your turnset and ask for advice in this thread, if something interesting is happening.

Please keep the team informed. If you're not available (RL can bite even the best ), we will modify the roster or just wait. But we all want to know what's going on (or at least I want to know ).

It's also nice if you give an intermediate progress report, whenever you need more than one day to finish your set.

You should give a report at the end of your set. It should at least contain all important events. It's usually best, if you just have notepad in the background and write down something each turn (even if it's just "nothing happened").
You should also mention what your plans for the next few turns would be.
The last turn of your set should be played out until you get the "hit enter for next turn". If you leave movement on units (e.g. that's quite usual for settlers, to give the next player the chance to place it), this should also be noted in your report.
Another rule usually applied is to not trade on the last turn, but just describe the options available and what you think the next player should do.
When all is fine upload the save to the upload page .
The next player will download it from the SGOTM progress and results page.
It's perfectly ok for the other players to download these intermediate saves also, to check the situation. But you're not allowed to play any turns from there.
Everbody is free to comment on every turnset and also to ask questions. And if you think there were mistakes, you should point it out (in a polite manner please - mistakes happen).

Ok, already a quite long post , so I quit here. If you're in doubt about anything, just post a question here. There is also the maintenance thread for non-spoilerish questions of common interest and the possibility to send a PM to AlanH or Gyathaar.

The start is tricky, but let's rule out SSE for the scout. We can see extra tiles across the lake just by going one step south. This means SS reveals 3 more tiles than SSE.

I agree flood plains could be a real pain. But at least they give extra river gold that can fund luxury or - preferably - science. We do need a good excuse to move our capital away from the lamb.

I'm pretty sure the risk of disease is increased for every tile we work, including the center tile if it's on flood plain (Jungle may be different since it is cleared to grassland by a town.)

This was probably nothing new so all I can say is basically good luck.

klarius said:

Well, a small technical issue.
Have you all downloaded and installed the SGOTM mod?
It's found in the reference thread or direct link here .
The file has to be unzipped in the Conquests/Scenarios folder.

Click to expand...

Thanks klarius. It's just that the created folder gives itself the wrong name when unzipped. It is named SGOTM-C3C but must be renamed SGOTM in order to work - at least for me.

EDIT deleted:
Ok that was not the problem, AlanH has corrected the error.

klarius said:

Another thing we will have to decide quite early is, if we want an early GA.

Click to expand...

I'd say yes, provisionally. The SGOTM is generally won or lost early, so I wouldn't care to wait for our GA. If we have to make a great military effort in the AA, we can reconsider.