SGOTM8 - Cutlery

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.

Here are the initial PM's discussing strategy

Tubby Rower said:

I didn't send this to Whomp because he hadn't signed up yet.

We might as well decide on what to do for starting moves. My feeling is to move inland since boats won't be built. No coastal towns. The only problem with that is that no harbors mean no trade until airports.

My questions to you guys are:

1. Should we move inland?
2. Where to move to maximize shields?

This is a small map (80x80). One tile island cities could suck real bad. Hopefully there are none on this map. There will be two ways to get to the other islands..... 1) helicopters and paratroopers & 2) getting cities in peace deals. Hopefully the second is not as obvious to the other teams.

Tubs

Click to expand...

soul_warrior said:

i would move down south (kissing that sweet lake).
like you said, coastal will not be effective, but a later city with a harbour can help trade (we only need one connected to the capital)
peace deals, eh? i like your thinking, tubby

Click to expand...

eldar said:

Sounds good, but there's nothing wrong with having coastal cities and harbors - otherwise we'll have coast/sea tiles doing nothing but give 1 food/3 gold all game. Just settle normally....

Good idea on the peace treaties - though I think we won't be alone in figuring it out...

I'd suggest, then, early military build-up, start a war, then see what we can demand in peace!!

Click to expand...

This one is on trading cities

Tubby Rower said:

Has anyone ever tried trading cities with an AI straight up? I wonder if they would give us a 1 pop city for a 4 or 5 pop city then we could declare and take back our original city.

I wonder.....

Click to expand...

soul_warrior said:

its a very thin rope we'll be walking here.
very thin.
i think, when we get to that stage we should PM the powers that be and make sure its not an exploit.
but i think it will be allowed.

Click to expand...

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

AFAIK this has been disabled in some patch. Thus we will only be able to get cities through peace deals, and useful ones after Flight is researched. Airports will be way more than important, and should be prebuilt to some extent for massive drops.

As for the first city placement, I guess we need to move the scout before we see where would be ideal. I'll have to work the numbers, but the first attempt I had at it gave us 5/5 - 5/6, which is only a worker pump. I suggest heading SE if we move, since the desert NW is no good for us EXP/IND. My first scout moves would be S-SE, unless we want to gamble on Settling W and losing the harbor capacity.

Click to expand...

Tubby Rower said:

Since this is a small map. I'm not sure how far we can move S before tundra starts showing. I agree on the scout & possibly worker move before deciding on the settler.

Click to expand...

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

Good point about the tundra. Perhaps we may want to do a bit of coordinated worker moves in the forests east to push the 5-5-(+2 growth)-6-6 24 shields into a 34 shields settler, for a few times as lumber allows. This will take 2 workers chopping.

Hopefully we find the 2 BG's we need to keep it running before we run out of lumber. We will always have a spare forest from the plains tile S, so that's a limitation down.

I think mining the wheat plains first would not be a waste of despotic food, but I'm no expert. I think irrigating it would end up being a gamble on wether or not will we find enough BG - it could act as one until we find more, and then be a +1/+1 tile when we have time to improve it back (we'll have 2 lumberjack workers ready exactly then).

Waiting for more experienced input.

Click to expand...

soul_warrior said:

basically i agree we need to see more.
S-SE is a good way to go.
didnt do the numbers so im not too wise there.
if its a tiny world, my guess is we can hope for 4 towns before the mihghty spoon goes a- so a harbour town later is possible.
i still think its not that nessesary.
shields will be more important, as we will take over other towns (ergo units)

Click to expand...

One started by B-E-F during breaks from scrubbing the Academy's floors

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

Image says a lot, I hope. Can't seem to make it display in the PM though.

Settling on the desert tile would not only put us away from the harbor and sea tiles but would trim our chances of 3 BG much further.
Right now we have 86% chances of a good settler pump,
20,7% chances of a glorious 4-turner,
13% chances of a settler/Archer every 8 turns
and 0,1% of 4 turn warrior/settler - we can always dream there's a cow over the lake.

I'd advise going for an early worker, since all the forests we'll need to chop will speed up the granary (and the barrack in case of a cow ) and we can therefore be done faster with the 3 tiles we need to irrigate, then clear even faster the remaining work @ Washington (which I'd suggest naming WoodenSpoonton).

The land W is fod rich, so on second thought I suggest we throw the scout directly to the mountain to spot any good worker pump. Anywhere with a forest/grass/plain or 2 will be just fine, since we can cover the food with those 100's of FP.

This being said, with roughly 6/7 chances of growing very very much more quickly than our AI buddies, we need to consider the fact that if we wipe out every civ on our continent before MM/PP, we'll be cut deaf from the rest of the world and we will get slowed down by the heavy lack of contacts.

I can almost see myself gifting Map Making to AI's already so they can start scouting for each others.

But all in all, that game will be a lot of fun and ownage

Click to expand...

soul_warrior said:

we bow down before his Spoonness
agree on early worker.
also agree on gifting MM if needed.
we can always keep the AI in a small part of the land (letting them keep 2-3 cities, so they keep working for our techs. (that is, ofcourse, if the landmass is big enough)
all in all, seems like a very good plan.

ps-this planning via PM is way but very awkward. cant wait for the game to begin.

Click to expand...

Howdy, all. Should be a good time.

For what it's worth, my contribution to the pre-game discussion was:

Minute Man said:

I like your analysis there, Beorn. I agree that moving SE seems to be the only reasonable option.

Do keep in mind that this is a non-random map, though. For that reason, I doubt we'll see a cow across the lake. I don't know if it's possible in the editor to control whether there's a bonus grassland under a forest, but if so, that's probably been taken into consideration too.

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

The land W is fod rich, so on second thought I suggest we throw the scout directly to the mountain to spot any good worker pump.

Click to expand...

I agree. And move the worker to the sheep; that should reveal a couple of the tiles across the lake. Not that I imagine we'll see anything there that'll change our minds.

This being said, with roughly 6/7 chances of growing very very much more quickly than our AI buddies, we need to consider the fact that if we wipe out every civ on our continent before MM/PP, we'll be cut deaf from the rest of the world and we will get slowed down by the heavy lack of contacts.

Click to expand...

That's definitely something to think about when the time comes. But of course it depends a lot on the situation.

Given that the variant won't work too well if there are big gaps between landmasses, we probably will have AI's within galley range. So one tactic we may want to consider is leaving an open space on our continent and trying to get contacts from the galleys sailing by to settle it (since the AI always knows where the open spaces are).

Then, of course, we declare war, raze the settlement, and get a city on the AI's home island in the peace talks (I can dream, can't I? ).

I can almost see myself gifting Map Making to AI's already so they can start scouting for each others.

Click to expand...

Sounds good, except I'm not sure why we would want to research Map Making in the first place. WoodenSpoonton certainly won't need a harbor anytime soon.

Click to expand...

Not much to add, except now that we know that contact trading will be available with Writing, we probably won't have to work quite as hard to get contacts off of our landmass - once we get one or two, we can hopefully trade for the rest.

I concur with settling SE. Irrigate the lambs (for that is what the funny fluffy stuff is on the tile to the east) for extra food, and a couple of flood plains will bump us up to +5/turn.

'kay... so 2fps (0 shields) + 1 lambs (1 shield) + centre (1) = 2 so far with 3 citizens (baaaaad).

Best we can do is 6 if there are 2 BGs. Good news, if there are, is we have a 4-turn factory (6+6(+2)+7+7(+2)) from 5-7.

Mind you I think that's a digest of what BeF said anyway....

seems all my posts arte in herre.
will try and summarize it later tonight to fit some sort of base consensus.
ohh, and subscribed

Contact trades with writing ... didn't know that

I guess right now our set priorities will be to gear up that factory, expand the island and clear the place. I'm strongly in favor of keeping everyone alive through to MM, and make an effort on keeping tundra spots open for AI boats. On Emperor, it shouldn't take an awful lot of time before they start showing up for whatever Alu/Oil is hidden there that they know and we don't.

Build scout first, worker second?

edit: as of now, we have as many posts as every other team together

SE, Not S??? Why waste the plain tile for a desert?

Roster:
eldar <--kick us off for the 1st 20 turns
in order of signup & subject to change
Tubby Rower
soul_warrior
B-E-F
Minute Man
jb1964

The reason to "waste" the plains is a much stronger chance of 4 turn factory. I didn't do the calcs, but consider our chances of 4 turns a settler to be quite near ziltch if we settle down on the desert, while we have 6/7 chances of having a 4 turn settler factory, and some chance of 4 turns settler/worker - which we don't if we settle the desert.

Now of course, there's 1/7 chance that this plan leads nowhere, and I'll do my Mea Culpa for wasting a plain tile then.

soul_warrior said:

seems all my posts arte in herre.
will try and summarize it later tonight to fit some sort of base consensus.
ohh, and subscribed

Click to expand...

You are the one that I quoted the most. I kept copies of all of the PM's that I was sent (except for Minute Man's - it was accidentally deleted earlier). The one's posted were all that I had at the time.

anyhoo....I see about the SE instead of the S. So disregard that comment

tubby said:

SE, Not S??? Why waste the plain tile for a desert?

Click to expand...

just to make sure.
i meant the tile just below the settler, in the picture on post 4.
it is a desert kissing a pond.
and is NOT ASSIGNED any worker symbols.

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

Contact trades with writing ... didn't know that

Click to expand...

Well, it wasn't mentioned in the original description, just in the first post in this thread. So I figured it was worth mentioning, just to make sure everybody caught it.

I guess right now our set priorities will be to gear up that factory, expand the island and clear the place. I'm strongly in favor of keeping everyone alive through to MM, and make an effort on keeping tundra spots open for AI boats. On Emperor, it shouldn't take an awful lot of time before they start showing up for whatever Alu/Oil is hidden there that they know and we don't.

Build scout first, worker second?

Click to expand...

Agree with all of the above.

Tubby Rower said:

SE, Not S??? Why waste the plain tile for a desert?

Click to expand...

So we can be on the coast, rather than one space away.

B-E-F said:

edit: as of now, we have as many posts as every other team together

Click to expand...

We might get the Spam prize away from the X-team if we keep it up. woo hoo

SE is coastal (harbour, Colossus & Lighthouse are both Exp wonders... we going to wait for Copernicus or even F-15s for our GA?), with 3 flood plains and the lambs we already have more than enough food to carry the single desert tile.

Well, that's one thing we'll have over them

MM said:

So we can be on the coast, rather than one space away

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that we need to be on the coast until the 3rd or 4th town at least. Since we are great but since we can't build boats and harbors will be relatively useless for a while, coastal towns are a waste of citizens that could be working shielded tiles.

Does that make sense, or am I waaay off base?

Edit::: I didn't think about EXP wonders.....thanks eldar

i agree on going inland for the first few towns.

edit - a total of 17... posts in 28 minutes...
the spam spoon is ours!

Tubby Rower said:

I'm not sure that we need to be on the coast until the 3rd or 4th town at least. Since we are great but since we can't build boats and harbors will be relatively useless for a while, coastal towns are a waste of citizens that could be working shielded tiles.

Click to expand...

I suppose that's true. But long-term, I think having our capital on the coast is a good idea (as eldar said, we may want to try for one of the coastal wonders). And I think we'll have enough shielded tiles to be fine in the early going. I don't think having one extra desert tile is a big drawback.

soul_warrior said:

edit - a total of 17... posts in 28 minutes...
the spam spoon is ours!

Click to expand...

Tubby wasn't kidding about that speed-reading course, was he?

Edit: As of this moment, the rest of the teams combined have 9 replies.

Just thought I'd post this; in bold are the ones that are not fundamentally a waste of shields (IMHO) and we could want to have, eventually:

Industrious Wonders:
Pyramids, HG, TGW, Hoover, Manhattan

Expansionnist Wonders:
Colossus, GLH, Copernicus, Magellan's, SETI

Both (Auto-GA) Wonders:
The Internet

Getting Colossus sounds smart, but beware of pyramids. A GA from Col (or Coper)+Hoover would be awesome, just when we can start to do something and need to push up.