SGOTM 9 - jeffelammar

AlanH

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Welcome to your game thread. Please use it and subscribe to it, 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 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 November 11th, at midnight, server local time.

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

You are the Viking leader, Ragnar Lodbrok*. You have met the Indian leader, Gandhi, and you have signed a pact in blood. The Vikings agree to teach india the art of war, and make them strong through conflict. In return India will take the Vikings to the stars.

* Vanilla players play as Einar Ragnarson, but he had the same craving for space travel as his father.

You start the game as a near neighbour of India. Following the pact you are at permanent war with Gandhi, and must remain so for the rest of the game. You are allowed no peace treaties with India. And India must win by space victory. All victory conditions are switched on except diplomatic, but the winning team will be the one that gets India to Alpha Centauri, and does it fastest.

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 - Scandinavia / Vikings
Opponents - Seven, preselected, including India
World size - 100 wide by 100 high. (Standard)
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Continents
Barbarians - Roaming

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

Game mods:
The AI races have Deity level unit support.
Otherwise, this game uses the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread.

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.

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.

Gyathaar's SGOTM 8 created some new challenges for everyone. I hope you will enjoy this one as much. Good luck in your efforts to lose with style and honour. :D
 
Looks like I'm the first one to check in.

This could be a tough one since it appears that Gandhi is on a one tile island. What I think we'll need to do is attack the rest of the world while not defending our cities when India comes calling. We should anticipate losing our capital to India, so we should concentrate on non-culture improvements (except for wonders) as they'll disappear once Gandhi captures the cities. What would probably work best establishing a second core to serve as our true development center and palace jump to there so India can have our current island. We'll also have to protect him from the predators out there.
 
Checking in.

I have a couple thoughts that might be of use (or not)

First: While we can't make peace with other nations, India can. Deny's idea of basically letting India have our core seems like a good start. If we can provide them with a strong economic base, then we can research technologies, give/trade them to a third party and let India buy from them.

Another strategem we might try is the Great Library Slingshot for India. If we keep them in a OCC, we may be able to slingshot them all the way into the Industrial.

I'll post more as it occurs to me.
 
jeffelammar said:
First: While we can't make peace with other nations, India can.

Please note:
first post said:
Following the pact you are at permanent war with Gandhi, and must remain so for the rest of the game. You are allowed no peace treaties with India.
 
Checking in.

@ALanH - I am sure he did not mean that if India initiates a peace treaty we could accept.

@Denyd - agree that military is the way to go. Barracks and units only I say, at least in "India's" core. I think we want to be balanced in considering how much military conquering we persue; we do want strong scientific and friendly civs to trade with and push the tech pace as quickly as possible.

@Jeff - The slingshot is a very interesting idea! Could we pull it off? It would require keeping India pre-education for as long as possible. Seems risky, as I am envisioning India :smoke: and trading for Education the turn before we let them take the town. But I think it is definitely worth a shot if the opportunity presents itself.

What about our starting settler? Do we move towards the cow? We lose the BG but create a canal and get growth. Or do we leave the good lands alone and hope for India to pick them up? (Sounds too risky to work.)
 
Hi, I'm back. I'm running on my new rig! I'll bore you with the details in a moment...

I want to squeeze in here: I took some time to read posts from SGOTM8 of the teams you guys were on. It looks like everyone knows what they're doing and makes sense. I'm excited about the prospects for team Jeffelammar!! :king:

Do all the teams play at the same level? Seems like Emporer or even Demigod would allow a faster tech pace...

We ought to plan India's growth as we would plan our own. What exactly do we want to do with them? The Great Library slingshot is a good idea, I bet we could boost them all the way into the Modern Age if we wanted to, but the other limiting factor in the space race is production: they need to build those ten parts lickedy-split. So, I suggest we get specific about the precise rules of corruption in C3C. I'll be frank, I don't fully understand them. AlanH has been kind enough to let on that this is a 100x100 map, so we should be able to calculate exactly the optimum positioning of India's future cities, from a corruption standpoint. I mean, does rank count at all? Is there any advantage to having them all at distance 4, even though it doesn't really throw it off if you don't use rings? for example.

Anyway, at some point I believe we are going to want to 'set up' Ghandi to capture cities, at a time and a place of our choosing. If we're really his lovingly abusive Viking pal, we'll set him up with marketplaces and maybe courthouses where appropriate (appropriate figured on the exact C3C corruption rules). But not barracks.

Another nice thing to do for Ghandi would be to enact the absurdist's Viking invasion of India: nothing but workers. They get captured immediately, and even Ghandi-AI will find some good use for them. Maybe we'll want to pack our cities with workers before we abandon their defenses. Stuffing them with captured Indian workers would make the cities even more hospitable for our Hindu pal.

How about the Monarchy slingshot? In an eternal war, war weariness will do neither us nor Ghandi any good.

That's about it for now.

Tech notes: While my new rig ought to be good enough to handle Civ4, I haven't tried it yet. Have booted C3C though. Holy Toledo, it's immensely faster! This is going to help me, believe it. I can even run CivAssistII without bogging down. edit:solved the problem. Looking forward to actually using CivAssistII for the first time! I'm a noob!
 
checking in also. Hello folks.

With India starting with Alphabet and CB they will take some time to get to MM. That time we should seize to build up a core for India. With their first units landing on our land we should already have settled another continent and leave our cities empty. Our give-away-cities should be optimized for production. That's when india also could need our workers - but only if we failed to develop their land properly in advance. We should not let them make the improvements... :crazyeye:

To keep a good tech pace we should develop our second continent as fast as possible with libraries and stuff. So in my opinion, rapid expansion is the slogan.

Interesting thought about ww. Losing many cities to India would even accelerate that, too. Maybe monarchy is best.

Great Library: Nice idea, India won't be too fast in researching, maybe they could use that boost. Maybe we could check when they are about to research education and let them take it then - could be risky with other civs trading techs to India. Depending on size of our continent we should consider building TGL on our second core and retake it after one turn.

To prevent them from landing on the wrong continent (or to early) we could try to bomb their fleet to make it return so we would avoid to kill their units - don't know if that works.

First moves:
I'm a little torn:
Maybe we should sacrifice one worker move NE to get more vision.
Or worker and settler W, then settler N or - maybe we should settle on the BG (Did I really write this?! :eek: ). EDIT: This would also keep us on the coast for early exploring and contacts, useful as always. If the water E-NE is also salty by surprise we should settle on the plain.

If we settle on the plain to 2NE the worker should road the BG for fast research and then improve the cow for instant use after expansion.

EDIT: After rethinking I vote for settling on the BG.
 
The BG does look like the best place. I'd suggest moving the worker E first (if I'm not mistaken, only that forest won't be revealed compared to NE); that'll be close to where we want to improve.

There would be two ways to go about it. Keep India small and everyone else backwards as we research quickly until we let India capture the Great Library, or let India get large and everyone else be advanced in tech (until the modern age?). Some tech gifts (in the second case or after India gets the Library) to manipulate AI research might be worthwhile. The nice thing about letting India take our cities is that they'll be more productive than the other civs'. It could be worthwhile to build Colossus and the scientific wonders for India to capture.
 
I'm here.

I think we want to wipe out the other AI as soon as possible and let India remain small for a long time. We can do a better job with our cities than India can, so there is not use letting India have them for a long time. Also, I think we want to be a Republic most of the time, because we need fast research. Relatively short wars with the rest of the world, one at a time should work out okay.

If we kept India small and isolated - maybe with a little blockade - we could wipe out the rest of the world while arranging a nice Great Library elevator ride for India. Then we let them out into the modern world and arrange for them to take over a nice core to build their spaceship. At that point we don't need to research quickly so we can either spend all our money on happiness or switch to monarchy to avoid war weariness. As we'll be just sitting back to let India win, what happens to us won't matter.
 
What happens if India wins by conquest or domination?

I'm a little curious is India is on a one tile island. If they are then the Great Library elevator might be the best option for this game. The problem is the polar objectives of conquering the rest of the AI while keeping the tech pace fast. I'm suspecting India will have Writing & Map Making early on there research path, so we can probably expect them to come calling in the late AA. Are there any other wonders that would benefit India or us? Maybe the Great Lighthouse to allow for faster (+1 to the already +1 SEA boost) ships.
 
denyd said:
What happens if India wins by conquest or domination?

Then we lose :crazyeye:
But we are at constant war with India. We can always clip their wings a bit, if they try to get too big.

I think we do not want to go crazy with military conquest in the early game. Set up a good size of land for India to eventually take over. Set up a (slightly larger) good size of land for our second core. Then go peaceful trading with as many AIs as possible (and hope nobody feels opportunist enough to declare on India!).

We set up the GLib elevator and take India to the top story at the last possible moment (ideally, but we'll probably play it a little safe). I think this should be timed with when we give India our initial core cities.

After we have India set up, we play the world police force. We keep the tech pace going, influencing peace with luxury trading, hoping for the remaining (say 3 or 4 ideally) civs to shoot up the tech ladder, and likewise to trade with India. Meanwhile, our goal will be to make sure we can eliminate any one (or two) of them at the time they decide to have "other-worldly" aspirations.

When India has all pre-requisite techs for the spaceship, we annhiliate every other civ from the planet, just to be safe. We keep India in check so they aren't able to win by domination or 100k culture, and we sit back and wait for them to build that spaceship. The last part might be a tad trying in patience.

Edit: Check out all those bonus' that India has around its one-tile. How many of those increase commerce? I know a lot increase food, and production I could care less about, but commerce will make them hit Education quicker.
 
pindicator said:
@ALanH - I am sure he did not mean that if India initiates a peace treaty we could accept.
Indeed. But I was concerned that he thought you were not allowed to make peace with anyone else either. This is not Always War with anyone except India.
 
I think we want to try to blockade India, so that they never make contact with the rest of the world. I'm reasonably confident that they are on a one tile island, as this ensures that they can't be wiped out by someone else before we have a chance to protect them. We can then keep India in the dark, because if we sit on those nice bonus tiles, they can't work them. This will keep their population small and their research rate slow until we let them out.

This will keep anyone else from meeting India, so we don't have to worry about anyone trading with them and messing up our elevator plans or dragging them into wars with others.

We'll need a little navy for blockading them, but then we can just play a fast research game with one fewer AI than usual, headed for conquest in the modern ages. Then we give India a way out, let them take the library and a dozen or so productive cities, and hope we can get them to head for a space ship instead of conquest.
 
You guys are right, keeping India small and isolated is probably the best way to keep things under control.

So we start expansion as usual with libraries in our core because Gandhi will only get our cities when we don't need them anymore.
Two early curraghs will be essential to scout other civs before they visit us...
 
I agree with the others about settling on that BG and grabbing the cow. I also agree that sending the worker onto the BG instead of the mountain is best- we'll see 2 tiles over the water. I think we ought to right-click the water to see what it is: +1g=ocean, +2g=lake. If it's ocean, does that change anyone's mind? Thinking about India's future, settling on the BG sets them up for a nice 4-ring later on (not that rings matter). I'll try to come back with specifics on corruption and distance later if no one beats me to it :)

Here's a possibility: What if this land is a doughnut? India could be a 1-tile island in the middle of a lake that we can control. So, if we're quick, nobody meets India, maybe even fight in the BC's just to keep AI away until we control the ring... And later in the game, we can boost them all the way to every required tech. Thing is, we'd want at least 1 other civ to also have every required tech, so that when Ghandi gets the Library he learns them all. I can't think of any other way to 'give' tech to India. The only alternative is to introduce them to AI's that we're also helping along. If we try to play the AI like a piano, we might let Ghandi out of his cage early to contribute to the fastest possible tech pace. On the one hand, it's Monarch, so the AI won't research fast. On the other hand, when has the AI ever had such a helper? I'm just speculating, IMO we ought to conciously reject the other options before we decide for sure what to do.

This is looking ahead a little, but if we are doing a Library elevator into the Modern Age, we might have time to build the Military Academy and stock up on a dozen or so armies. This way, we can trap units in our land and manipulate them into position, that is, right next to our cities when the time is right. Otherwise, Ghandi-AI might sit on his rock for 20 turns before he figures out we've abandoned the continent.

Edit: does a 'locked alliance' war cause war weariness in the same way as an ordinary war?
Edit2: Is there anything we can do to speed up Ghandi's building of the Apollo program?
 
AlanH said:
Indeed. But I was concerned that he thought you were not allowed to make peace with anyone else either. This is not Always War with anyone except India.
No, I understood, It was just one of those cases where you type one thing when you're thinking another.

The text I meant was.

While we can't make peace with India, others can...

That's what I get for insufficient proof reading...
 
One more thought: We'll want to have fast science ourselves no matter what we do with Ghandi or the AI. My experience in COTM18 showed that the players who expanded to 7 or so productive cities and then just grew them got an early science lead over players who went for an early farmer's gambit (say 17 towns by 1000BC). The difference was a dozen turns or so. Other factors will come into play of course, it'll take tweaking. Should we agree that early science is our priority? Or do you guys favor early expansion?
 
If we have a settler factory going, it's hard to think of how not producing more towns is going to hurt our science. But is our early objective science or military?
 
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