SGOTM 03 - Maintenance Thread

Welcome to the C-IV SGOTM 03 Maintenance thread. The purpose of this thread is to give you somewhere to post about non-spoiler issues relating to the game. It is a way of communicating to the rest of the players outside your team, and with the staff about matters that affect your team or everyone. You can post about bugs, rule clarifications, problems with the roster etc. Please subscribe to it so that you are kept up to date with new information as the game proceeds.

The team lists are in the second post in this thread.

The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Versions
Each team has chosen to play this map in Civilization IV version 1.61 or in Warlords version 2.08. The maps and civs/leaders will be the same in each version, but the games will play differently.

HoF Mod
The teams will play using variants of the HoF Mod to allow you to take advantage of the additional logging, event monitoring and advisor options it provides. The mods will be mandatory, as the start files will be locked to those assets.

The Warlords teams use the standard HoF Mod for Windows, version 2.08. This has been updated to HOF_Mod-2.08.002 as of 28 November.

The Vanilla teams use the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 1.61. This has been updated to HOF_Mod-1.61.009 as of 28 November.

There is no mod option to accommodate Mac players.

Start files will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of December 1st.

Starting Position
Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Notes

• Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space victories in the least turns.
  
• 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.
  
• Spoiler information will absolutely NOT be tolerated in this thread.

[UPDATE] References to HoF Mod updated to refer to the new versions. AlanH, 28 Nov.

Here are the teams playing in this game:

I would draw your special attention to the following comment in post #1:

"... we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game."

It is extremely likely that new versions of the HoF Mod will be released before we start this game. In order to avoid you having to chop and change mods later, for GOTMs or for HOF games, we shall use the latest versions when the start saves are published.

I've never played no city razing option before. Does this apply to barb cities too? (I assume it does but no harm in checking.)

@AlanH: Are there any issues regarding players using different options in the HOF mod as far as exchanging the saves goes?

Will the save load up the last player's options, or the current player's last used set of options?

Any harm in each player re-setting to their prefered options? I am thinking about issues like autolog format and degree of inclusiveness, first turn = 0 or 1, etc.

dV

The save doesn't carry the user's options with it. They are set on each player's PC individually, and will be the same for each turn set that you play on your PC, regardless of what settings have been used by other players in between.

Your autolog file will only include events from your turns.

The only point in your post that you need to standardise is turn numbering for 4000 BC. I think you'd better get it straight within your team, otherwise you'll be talking at cross purposes. Personally, I can't see what's wrong with 4000 BC being turn zero, which is the dafault everywhere, and matches the in-game logging and counting. I know you seem to have an issue with this, but it works fine if you think of the turn number as a count - how many turns have you played? At 4000 BC you have played zero turns.

pigswill said:

I've never played no city razing option before. Does this apply to barb cities too? (I assume it does but no harm in checking.)

Click to expand...

Yes - I'd like this clarified. Not this point so much, but do size-1 cities still auto-raze?

I presume 'no razing' simply means that the player does not get presented with the 'install new governor / raze city' pop-up option.

pigswill said:

I've never played no city razing option before. Does this apply to barb cities too? (I assume it does but no harm in checking.)

Click to expand...

No city razing means what it says... no city razing.. ever..
No autorazing of newly buildt cities.. no option to not accept culture flipped cities.. and so on - this is the case for all civs.. barbarians too
(there is only one exception, and that is if the one city challenge is set too.. but that is not the case in this game)

Is there a pre-game discussion thread?

yes, in your team thread is where you should be posting any pre-game discussions

AlanH said:

The only point in your post that you need to standardise is turn numbering for 4000 BC. I think you'd better get it straight within your team, otherwise you'll be talking at cross purposes. Personally, I can't see what's wrong with 4000 BC being turn zero, which is the dafault everywhere, and matches the in-game logging and counting. I know you seem to have an issue with this, but it works fine if you think of the turn number as a count - how many turns have you played? At 4000 BC you have played zero turns.

Click to expand...

@AlanH: I agree, if you think of it as a count of completed turns, 0 is correct while in the first turn. And although my preference had been for the number to represent the current turn (not the last completed turn), I have recalibrated the noggin' so it's fine. Just like the 1900's being the 20th century ...

dV

I was just talking about general pre-game discussion ideas, like GOTM discussions, not the double secret probation discussions that we are already using to plan your demise!!!!hahahahaha

ronnie1: there is a thread that is called SGOTM3-pre-game discussion, and you can post in it if you like, but I doubt anyone will respond. Pretty much everyone wants to keep their plans and thoughts secret from the other teams at this point.

Thanks Thrallia, I'd missed that one.

Unless of course you want to mislead the 'opposition'!

We could of course post the exact correct details of our respective teams' plans up in that thread in the hope that the opposition will think we're bluffing

Moderator Action: Please can we keep this thread to relevant and useful information.

Just as the sign-up thread was reserved for sign-up communications, this one should be reserved for useful information exchange between admin and players. Almost 150 people should be subscribed to this thread. If the signal:noise ratio falls they'll unsubscribe, and then we'll lose our communications channel.

AlanH said:

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.

Click to expand...

I hope this would not mean we can no more save in the middle of a TS, discuss unexpected events with the rest of the team, and then go back to play.

Just to be sure (sorry if i'm a bit flooding you tonight ).

The rules against reloading are very simple, and apply equally to GOTMs and SGOTMs. The software used to parse your saves is no different from that used for GOTMs, and the HoF Mod doesn't change the rules, it just helps us to confirm that players are obeying them.

The Rule: You MUST NOT replay any part of the game - single events, part turns, whole turns, whole sessions/turnsets, or the entire game, until the game is over.

The only exception is when you experience a crash. You should then reload from the autosave at the beginning of that turn, and replay that turn up to the point of the crash as accurately as you can, errors and omissions and all, and then continue. (You do have Civ4 set to autosave every turn, I hope?)

You can save at any time. If necessary you can quit while you discuss the game. You can then reload that same save later and continue from that point in the game.

AlanH said:

The only exception is when you experience a crash. You should then reload from the autosave at the beginning of that turn, and replay that turn up to the point of the crash as accurately as you can, errors and omissions and all, and then continue. (You do have Civ4 set to autosave every turn, I hope?)

Click to expand...

Good point.

People - the default 'autosave' period for Civ4 is every 4 turns. I suggest that you open up \my documents\my games\Sid Meier's civilization 4\ and open the 'config' file. Look through that for the autosave interval setting, and change it to every turn.

And btw - as a SGOTM-specific issue, it is also not allowed to load the game and play other people's turn-sets in parallel (or ahead of them). You can open the save to check details etc; but please - only one person playing the save at a time.