SGOTM 11 - Godzilla is a monster

[AlanH]

Welcome to your SGOTM 11 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 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 September 9th, at midnight, server local time.

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

You are Shaka of the Zulus, and your mission is to dominate the World. The world is standard sized, but crowded with 13 rivals grouped into several power blocks locked into mutual protection pacts. You are out in the cold.

All victory conditions are switched on, but the winning team will be the one that achieves a Domination victory earliest. Domination is defined for this game as 75% of world land plus coast, and 75% of world population.

Here's the start.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Zulu
Difficulty - Emperor
Opponents - 13: America, Arabia, China, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Ottomans, Russia, Scandinavia.
World - Standard, Continents, 60% water, 4 billion years old, temperate
Barbarians - Roaming

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

Game mods:
The game uses the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread, with the following modifications:

- Domination requires 75% of world territory and 75% of world population.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included, as you can see from the starting screenshot. If you have played SGOTM 9 then you will be ready. Other players will need to download and unzip this small graphics mod pack. Details are provided in the SGOTM Reference Thread..

Please ensure that you have incuded the line: NoAIPatrol=0 in your conquests.ini text file.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared, skipping references to PtW or Vanilla versions of Civ3.

The GOTM Reference Thread.
The SGOTM Reference Thread.

Notes:

A. ONLY Conquests version 1.22 (C3C) is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - the laurels will be awarded for the fastest Domination victory. The wooden spoons will go to the team with the lowest final Jason score, having completed the game.

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.

Enjoy your game

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Godzilla is a monster.

Roster: all check.
Beorn-eL-Feared -
soul_warrior -
RickFGS -
eldar -
TheLoneMan -
ThERat -

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Scout south, then pause, save and discuss the second move, then pause, save and discuss the settling site ? We have pots so we shouldn't be shy to push a granary up early. And I just had a frightening thought: what if we are in locked PEACE ?!!

[ThERat]

BeF

I agree with moving the scout then stop for discussion. We need maximum information, so moving him onto the mountain west or east would reveal more territory immediately, wouldn't it?

from the current situation settling 1 tile SE seems best to me, but we need to see what's behind the fog

[TheLoneMan]

Can we make the name just Godzilla? Godzilla is a Monster is just... weird.

But I agree, move scout first turn and then save before moving settler. Upload a screenshot, then discuss settling spot. We will decide if we will drop where we stand or move one square away(two squares if we see something absolutely incredibly mandatory). Then load save and either build city or move a square. Simple enough.

Also, I might request that I go before somebody experienced in micro-management, as that is most likely my weakest area. Also, I would ask that I am not one of the first thirty or forty turns, as the build order and micro-management in the early turns are some of the things I'm still learning about through observation.

Cheers!

[ThERat]

LoneMan, do not worry according to the Roster, you aren't up immediately and I will be after you, i can be anal about MM cities, so that should be fine

[eldar]

Ding! Please note I'm moving in about a week's time, so my net access (wrt to downloading and uploading saves - forum access I can do from work... ...) will be flaky.

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Moving to the mountains reveals more info right now, but moving south still allows for a mountain to be visited, and it tells us wether our waters are fresh or not. It also reveals the only habitable lands we have without gambling a turn over the mountains.

If nothing impressive shows up, it could be worthwhile to even send the worker north, and we wouldn't lose a scout turn there. Worker turns are important but not as much as settler turns. The most likely outcome of our trekkings would be, to me, scout S-E then worker N, E or SW(Cow), all depending.

On the MM subject, I think the picky managers here are eldar, ThERat and I, so it might be worthwhile to put either one of us every other set. That'd make the roster:

Beorn-eL-Feared - UP
RickFGS - On Deck
eldar -
TheLoneMan -
ThERat -
soul_warrior -

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Discussed game plan so far:

- Feed internal brawlings between the AI the best we can
- No swordsmen gambit, start being agressive with mounted units (whichevever looks convenient)
- Never stop expanding

To be discussed

- Crowded map, so a granary might not do us as much good early. We need to explore fast, find and grab good spots with early settlers, before the first granary. This would also free some space for one or two more scouts. I could try and sketch a 2-worker chop job for a granary after the 2nd or 3rd settler, see if we effectively gain some food there - when we know where we'll settle.

- What if we are in locked war or locked peace ? Monarchy ? We can't avoid untimely wars then, although it might be good for us if the AI annexes some of our allies' towns to their lands, in a way we can grab it back.

- Tech path: we start with 2 useless techs on the research front. Do we start on alphabet or masonry? This will depend on the F10 who has what IMO ...

[soul_warrior]

CHECK!

move worker onto BG (south) and scout go N onto mountains?

agree we dont want a gran too soon.

monarch butterflies are beutiful!
and stone workering is nice too

[ThERat]

moving the worker S + scout N does sound like a good idea. Most likely we will settle south and need the worker there anyway. How about we move the scout N and then stop and discuss?

If we are locked in a permanent war, then monarchy might be a good idea. As for research, we should go for the republic slingshot, but that means we need to acquire alphabet. So, I'd say full steam for alphabet unless our direct neighbors have that already.
Maybe we move scout, check F10 and then decide.

[eldar]

My first move would be the settler SE, as regardless of whether or not the water is fresh, it's the best spot to settle anyway. That way we know what's in the water without wasting a worker or scout move

Scout W, worker SW.

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Originally Posted by eldar

My first move would be the settler SE, as regardless of whether or not the water is fresh, it's the best spot to settle anyway.

Point there. I still would move the scout first however, but moving the settler before the worker isn't senseless here. What is the most likely place we could find another good spot for settling ? If we manage to find a perfect spot, it might be worth 2-3 moves. I think to the NW would be the best prospect because of the cow still in range, so I'd try the scout on the NW ridge, on either mountain.

So how about scout W, then settler SE, then worker SW, and see along the way if anything is good enough to break plans ?

[RickFGS]

CHECK

I agree with eldar

Move settler SE and settle on forest.

If: 1 - we have fresh water - move worker to shield tile and mine, because we will irrigate the cow for 3 food surplus later on.

2 - if we dont have fresh water - move worker to cow and mine

3- Move scout SE onto moutain, because we will espand south east around the moutains on earlier basis so we need to see what is south and we deplet all scout movements this way.

As for micromanagement i trust we all know that food is power, and food tiles has priorities. And we all know how to play the lux slider yes?



Red- Settler; Blue - Scout; Whites - Worker option 1 and Worker option 2

NotE: Although the North move for scout is good also because it may reveal a goody house , you guys vote.

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

If we have fresh water, the first thing in the world to do is to get that cow watered. The second is to agree on the scout moves

I'm still undecided, since pushing the scout S-W will give us 2 full moves yes, but the chances of uncovering something immediately useful are lessened. The mountain SW-S of the cow will blind us out of many tiles we could expect to get from the mountain spot and forces us to 'concede' a move eastwards on the next turn if we want to move 2 spaces still.

Moving it straight W maximizes our chances at finding something better to the west, which still includes the cow, but gives us nothing actually towards the cow. We could use the worker for this, however.

Moving S then E would ensure we know what we're up against if we move SE and might encourage us to settle on the spot.

I think it would be reasonable to go S-E scout, if water is salty move the worker W in hopes of finding a river or another food bonus on the other side, and work it from there.

Whatever we agree on doing, I'll pause at every move, this starting position is trickier even than the usual Gyathaar.

[RickFGS]

lets settle SE on forest has i put on picture, then save and we discuss from there

Moving scout north now seems best to me, beacuse the first scout should be the one going the far exploring map and taking goody houses, if we take him south we wont find many things since land is scarse.

The worker should start mining or irrigating asap, never use it to explore, we have scouts and curraghs for that

[ThERat]

As for micromanagement i trust we all know that food is power, and food tiles has priorities. And we all know how to play the lux slider yes?

I guess we should all know, else we don't even need to compete here. Anyway, there are so many possibilities and we might be lucky or unlucky, who knows.
We also need to decided what we are going to research, so F10 is important for us to know whether to go for alphabet or something else.

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Just FYI, Continents 60% at 14 players should be comparably cramped to continents 80% at 8 - which is a more standard configuration. It is rather cramped. We'll probably have an opening to get into very early horsemen war gear at the end of our expansion phase.

[TheLoneMan]

Yes we need to expand quickly, which will mean some warmongering if it is fairly cramped at the start.

[AlanH]

Originally Posted by ThERat

... so F10 is important for us to know whether to go for alphabet or something else.

PLEASE read the stuff I write. I don't do it just because I enjoy it, and some of it's sometimes even useful!!!

Originally Posted by Every SGOTM-related thread, including this one

Opponents - 13: America, Arabia, China, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Ottomans, Russia, Scandinavia.