SGOTM 01 - Memphis Blues

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 1 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. I hope you enjoy the game.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory. All victory conditions are still enabled though, with exception of Space Race, so you have to avoid getting another type of victory (and of course prevent the AIs from winning).

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of May 12.

Here's the start position.


Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

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

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization4 v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award - the Gold Laurels.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy.

C. 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.

Good luck to your team, and remember rule #1: Enjoy your game

Hi!

I just want to say hello! Since I'm new to SGOTM I hope that one of you guys will get our team started on this long journey.
I suppose we should have some kind of opening strategy brainstorming in the next few days. But maybe we should do a team name brainstorm first! Since we are Egyptian I suggest "Memphis Blues". Lets hear some more suggestions .
Look forward to hearing from all of you!

Best regards to all of you from the Kingdom of Denmark - nothing rotten there!

Hi fellows ,

Let's start talking about early strategy, and about our starting position...

For the name of the team I'm ok with "Memphis Blues" (I don't have a lot of imagination for this sort of thing... )

I have no strong opinions for a name, so Memphis Blues is fine with me.

We also need to pick an order I would assume. I would prefer to go later since I will be leaving town on the 12th for a few days and would prefer not to take my laptop if I don't have to.

For the more fun topics...

It's going to be an interesting decision as to where to settle the capital. Settling in place could make an amazing science or GP city. It would also have 3 possible mines it could easily support if we wanted to. If we move one SW onto the plains hill we still get 3 other hills to mine and a ton of flood plains (6 instead of 9) and a cow. It would now be a pretty good production city, especially early.

Just a short note to say I exist and I've noticed we're a team. This week is kinda a crazy for me, but when Friday night rolls along, things should be better for a little while.

I've never played in a SGOTM before so I hope there's someone else here who knows more of the mechanics of how this works than me!

As for time zone, I'm in GMT+9 (eastern Australian time), in case that's significant in deciding order.

I have no preferences regarding name, I'll go along with whatever you guys like.

Hi everyone

Just checking in. Have completed one SG so I'm no expert but looking forward to the game. Like the name Memphis Blues.

Regarding the start I would say settling on the spot would be ok but maybe moving to the hill in the SW would be good to reveal some more area around our start location.

I'm in the UK and have a hectic week ahead of me so maybe later on would be best for me. I'll keep an eye on the thread and help out if I can.

Sorry everyone I've just realised that I'm the chosen team leader is everyone ok with this?

So far everyone has checked in except Drogear, KingdomBrunel and Syntherio.

Does anyone fancy been our scribe? Also who feels like going first so we can plan a turn order and decide on the number of turns per round?

Also if anyone has any queries please post and we can get things sorted before we start.

This is going to be fun!!!

Sorry everyone I've just realised that I'm the chosen team leader is everyone ok with this?

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No problem for me... we just have to think for a roster. I'm not a specialist of the opening (especially in Monarch... ) so I prefer to be the third/fourth player in the roster...

Regarding the start I would say settling on the spot would be ok but maybe moving to the hill in the SW would be good to reveal some more area around our start location.

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I'd prefer not, I didn't like loosing time at the begining... I think we should settle where we are.

For the tech path..? We should probably go for Animal Husbandry for the horses and our UU (for an early expansion war... ) and after Pottery or if we haven't horses, we should go for BW.

For the production I suggest a warrior until we reach pop2, than a worker...

That you guys do you think about this..?

Sorry everyone I've just realised that I'm the chosen team leader is everyone ok with this?

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Yes, please!

Ideas for opening strategy:

Since we don't know how far away the Inca civilization is i think our main concern in the beginning of the game is defence. On Monarch level the AI are in my experience clearly stronger than us in the beginning of the game . Thus we could face a stronger enemy quite early. This points toward building a strong military early and maintain it at least for as long as we are unsure of the location and strength of our Inca opponent. Due to these considerations I kind of favor settling on the plains hill and making our capital a production city as suggested by BSouder. Not only to gain the extra hammer from the city square but also to get some extra defensive strength for the military units fortified in the capital.
If the Inca people are really nearby they will probably come "visit" with a mix of archers and Quechua's. In that case, researching hunting and building archers might not be sufficient for our defence since the Quecha with 10% strength (from agressive trait) and 100% strength against archers is clearly superior. So I suggest skipping archers alltogether and go directly for axemen and/or our unique unit the War Chariot (as suggested by radiopill). War Chariots are very good for a defensive war: Pillaging enemy territory, hit and run attacks. Axemen are very good both for defence and offence and with the city raider promotion they can also be used to capture enemy cities. To sum up I suggest researching mining, bronze working and animal husbandry early in order to reveal the location of bronze and horses as soon as possible. Getting one or both of these ressources early could save us from being wiped out!! Researching these techs will also enable us to build a pasture on the cow square, mine the hills and chop rush military! Even if we are not going to build archers there could be a point in researching hunting and building a scout to seek out the location of the Incan Civ.
Regarding build orders I don't have any special preferences except that I like to build a worker as soon as I have the techs available to put him to work. I guess that would be right away since we already know farming and the wheel.

Hope to hear more ideas from you guys! Since this is a team effort I think it is important that we all support and understand whatever strategy we might choose. Better a simple and clear plan that we can all follow consistently than something detailed that half of the team disaggrees with or doesn't follow for other reasons. So please explain the reasoning behind your ideas. That will also make it more fun to play.

Happy Inca hunting

Due to these considerations I kind of favor settling on the plains hill and making our capital a production city as suggested by BSouder.

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Ok, let's go for that, but it's a dangerous gambit... we didn't know what's on the other side of this hills...
And if we settle there, we should search AH first, so we can pasture the cow sooner, and we can see the horses.
We should go for our UU first, it costs 25 (axemen 35) and are immune to first strikes (so pretty effective against archer...).

Ok, let's go for that, but it's a dangerous gambit... we didn't know what's on the other side of this hills...

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I see your point! There could be useless terrain (mountains, desserts) to the west. But worst case we could go back and settle in the original spot. Of course we would feel pretty stupid but we would only have lost one turn. Remember that the game speed is epic .

We should go for our UU first

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I see no problem in going for AH first. We need to find those horses! I think we should keep both options open and also go for bronze working fast. Chop rushing is nice and we may find that copper is closer to the capital than horses.

Remember that the game speed is epic .

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I forgot this one ... So ok let's go for the gambit

Chop rushing is nice

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We'll see, but we probably need to spare some forests for the health bonus, with all this floodplains ...

If we settle in place the cows are going to be just outside our fat cross which means our first city will be unable to work them. By moving to the hill we will hopefully get a much better view of our start location which based on the screenshot above is pretty poor with lots of desert to the E.

At least we have the river and flood plains which should allow us to expand quite quickly. We are the Egyptians which gives us agriculture and the wheel as starting techs so we need to be looking for good farming land to start with and our traits are spiritual and creative so maybe an early religion would be useful. Also due to creative we get +2 culture for each city.

I feel that either mysticism or AH would be good starting techs but we need input from everyone then we can start to plan our first turn.

Once we have all the ideas we can make our plans.

If was playing it myself, I'd like to make the move to the hill SW of the settler for two reasons - first of all it puts the cows in the fat cross of a city founded there, and secondly, I'd get to see beyond the hill in that direction. The defense bonus of a city on the hill would be a nice extra. I'd be hoping it wouldn't ever come into play though!!

At worst, one could move the settler back if it's all useless desert or something and lose only a couple of turns, which at epic is less important. At best, there might be something quite useful within range over that way.

With our UU relying on horses and being an early game UU, it would be good to have the horses earlier rather than later wouldn't it? I'd be inclined to go for AH early on, if not first.

Perhaps we need to answer some of the following questions...

How are we trying to win? Do we need to know that now? Does this effect what techs we go for early? Maybe survival early on is an important consideration in the techs - that is, go for AH so we get get horses for our UU, and BW to get some axemen?

The culture angle is worth considering when you're creative and spiritual and therefore founding religions is handy. How important is that compared to the techs mentioned above?

How are we trying to win? Do we need to know that now? Does this effect what techs we go for early? Maybe survival early on is an important consideration in the techs - that is, go for AH so we get get horses for our UU, and BW to get some axemen?

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If we really want to win the SGOTM (and not only the game), the only real option is Domination (Conquest isn't possible with the always peace we'll have...). So IMO we should search first AH, then BW if we didn't have any horses, and if we have horses we could think at a CS slingshot so we can grab hopefully the confucianism...

victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy

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We can also try a diplomatic victory, but IMO it will be really hard to achieve this goal without a good plan, and a lot of ressources for lobbying some AI...
Nevertheless, if we can't go for an early domination, we still can go for UN. But that means, we failed at war, and we'll have a bad background with some of the AI... who won't vote for us, unless we are really really sweet with them...

New Team #2
BSouder, Drogear, Frederiksberg, Hyfrydle, KingdomBrunel, Mad Professor, radiopill, Syntherio

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So BSouder, Drogear, KingdomBrunel, and Syntherio are still missing... what are we going to do..? Did someone send them PM..?

And when the first save will be released..?

Please PM your missing players to chase them up. We have a few standby players ready to move in if you can't retrieve them all.

See your first post for starting info.

How are we trying to win? Do we need to know that now?

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I don't think we need to decide on that in this early stage. If we focus on staying alive and building our civilization there will be plenty of time later to contemplate the type of win.

I'm a bit worried about war weariness. Since we cannot make peace with the Incans our only option seems to be to destroy them as fast as possible. I kind of hope they are not too far away!

Religion is nice for boosting happyness and gold if you can build a shrine. I suggest we postpone the decision of whether or not to go for founding a religion. We do not start with Mysticism and are thus handicapped in the race for early religion. And maybe we get lucky and capture a holy city from the Incas (They do start with mysticism). Religion may also spread randomly in our lands.

I aggree with radiopill that we should not chop rush indiscriminately. Still it could be critical to have the ability to chop rush or pop rush (also available with the slavery civic enabled by BW) in order to get the Oracle for CS slingshot or even to get an army fast if the Inca Civ. turns out to be our next door neighbour.

Did someone send them PM..?

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Forgive my ignorance, but what does "PM" stand for?

Private Message. Click Private Messages at top right on each forum page, under your 'Welcome Frederiksburg' text. You can send messages directly to up to five forum user names,