SGOTM 03 - Geezers

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 3 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.

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.

Version
Your team will play this map in Civilization IV version 1.61, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 1.61. This is currently HOF_Mod-1.61.008, but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

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

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.

Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun.

Ha, first to sign in.

Looking at the rules for the game a couple of things strike me:

AI Aggression - Aggressive
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Click to expand...

The first is that establishing good relations with the AI for a diplo win may prove hard work. The second is that we will need to be careful capturing cities as we will have to keep them whether or not they are in a good position.

Turn 1a: 4000 BC
Turn 1b: 3970 BC
Turn 1c: 3970 BC - 3010 BC
Turn 2: 3010 BC - 2500 BC
Turn 3: 2500 BC - 1900 BC
Turn 4: 1900 BC - 1300 BC
Turn 5: 1300 BC - 1000 BC
Turn 6: 1000 BC - 850 BC
Turn 7a: 850 BC - 730 BC
Turn 7b: 730 BC - 700 BC
Turn 8: 700 BC - 550 BC
Turn 9: 550 BC - 400 BC
Turn 10: 400 BC - 250 BC

Follow this link for turns 11 onwards

Good morning, guys and welcome to our new members DynamicSpirit, Dagnabit and Htadus !

My first thoughts for what it is worth:

As it is a standard, archipelago map with 17 civs I expect each civ to have its own island. According to the picture we may have space for 2 or 3 cities on our own island if the island does not have more room to the NE. From the picture I see that coast is running up the whole way N, but we cannot see what is in the NE, yet. As Sam already mentioned we have to choose carefully which cities we take as we have to keep them.

Settling in place would be my vote.

We start with mining and hunting. I do not think we have a chance to found an early religion with 17 rivals do we ?

I will try to play with World Builder to set up a test game later today.

Ello everyone! Ta for the welcome!

My initial thoughts:

Although we have a choice between diplo and spaceship win, I think we should be aiming at a diplo win, since that should be achievable long before a spaceship win. (I'm guessing Gyathaar intended spaceship as a backup if for some reason it becomes apparent a diplo win is not achievable. But I'd be very surprised if spaceship wins won the laurels). That means our strategy should be based on maximizing science while keeping enough other friends who'll vote for us. I've never quite figured out the best no. of cities is for maximizing science, but from the forums, I get the feeling there's a consensus that having 8-ish cities early on is good. But given the number of opponents we can be fairly sure there won't be space for 8 cities. I think we'll be lucky to get 3 good city sites before we're boxed in, may even be 2. I'm therefore inclined to think in terms of a militaristic start to try and get around 8 good city sites as soon as possible, then focus on science. Perhaps thereafter expand slowly with small wars that don't harm our science too much (the number of opponents should make that bit easier since noone else will be big enough to put up much of a fight). I agree with Sam that getting enough friends to vote for us in a diplo vote will be hard. I'd therefore suggest that we should aim to control a very substantial portion of the world's population by the time the diplo vote comes round. I also agree with Sam about city-capturing. In a funny way, that's probably one aspect in which the vanilla game will be tougher than the the warlords variant, since the AI's in warlords are going be a lot more sensible about city placement.

More short term, finding bronze/iron/horses is going to be particularly important. The crowded map means a high chance of our being stuck without any of those if we don't move very quickly to find out where they are.

In the very short term, I'm a great fan of worker-stealing - it can really give us a boost and at the same time cripple nearest neighbours (who we'll probably want to conquer anyway), so I would like to aim to do that asap (though that may turn out not to be possible if we're alone on an island). OTOH we are playing archipelago and that can give quite big islands so I'm not prejudging whether we're alone at this point. Worker stealing and then keeping a small stack (2 archers or 1 archer + 1-2 warriors) in the opponent's land to stop them doing anything can be *extremely* powerful, and may be particularly worth considering here because of the no-city-razing rule: We probably want as far as possible to stop near-neighbours founding cities so that *we* get to choose where our future cities will be placed ). Doing worker-stealing may need to mean we prioritize archery though.

In terms of starting spot, I'm loathe to settle on floodplains for obvious reasons, especially in what's going to be a science-dominated game, but there are those two clam there. It also strikes me that this starting spot isn't quite as good as it looks: Two of the resources are useless until calendar. The fact that it's got 4 resources already, combined with pre-guessing Gyathaar's cunning makes me feel fairly strongly suspect it won't have any strategic resources too near. And given the proximity of land to the west and how crowded this map is, I think there is a small risk that we'll find we are fighting for control of the westernmost clam. OTOH I can't see much in the way of better spots. Personally I'm not yet convinced either way, but I'd like to throw up for discussion the possibility of settling on what looks to me like a grassland tile 2E of the settler. (Such a start would probably run: Move settler 1E (not 2E) on first turn (so he's in a position to settle on turn 2 for quite a few possible decisions). Move the scout SE to check out that land (and if necessary S again on turn 2). If we see sea resources further east or south then settle on the grassland. If not, then I'm not sure.

DynamicSpirit said:

Personally I'm not yet convinced either way, but I'd like to throw up for discussion the possibility of settling on what looks to me like a grassland tile 2E of the settler. (Such a start would probably run: Move settler 1E (not 2E) on first turn (so he's in a position to settle on turn 2 for quite a few possible decisions). Move the scout SE to check out that land (and if necessary S again on turn 2). If we see sea resources further east or south then settle on the grassland. If not, then I'm not sure.

Click to expand...

Surely the scout and settler are going to be revealing the same tiles on your plan? Wouldn't it be better for the scout to head NE to the 4 hammer hill (which looks like a Gyathaar special) to see what's north?

Hello to all. Too much good food the past couple days to engage the brain fully but did manage to play some turns on the start posted in one of the other threads. I agree we will have to get our first couple cities out quickly and be prepared to take any cities that are close and fit our needs. A diplomatic victory in some ways may be harder (although quicker) necessitating destroying more Civs to insure we have sufficient pop to control vote. With aggressive Civs I don't see how we can stay passive as we will most likely have at least one grumpy neighbor. I agree an early religion is iffy and early BW, Archery Horse are crucial. Getting a workboat/galley out to meet other Civs quickly may be second as with this many CIVs tech trading could be huge. Also I am sure we will be needing to transport troops/settlers sooner than in a lot of games. Not sure about where to settle yet but would suggest workboat/worker/Chop Settler/warrior to start. BW followed by Horse Techs (if no copper) then sailing,farming.

Sam_Yeager said:

Surely the scout and settler are going to be revealing the same tiles on your plan? Wouldn't it be better for the scout to head NE to the 4 hammer hill (which looks like a Gyathaar special) to see what's north?

Click to expand...

In terms of scouting for max. land, yes you're absolutely right (I guess you mean E-NE) (In my suggestion, I wasn't thinking of the settler scouting, more positioning him for max. flexibility in city placement 2nd turn, but on further reflection that might not be good, and perhaps we should be prepared to wait a couple of turns before settling anyway in order to find out what kind of land we're on?).

Other random thoughts: I guess it's crucial for early strategy to know whether we are on a small island or on something bigger. And if we are on a small island, we may want to be very careful about city placement. Would we want to work it so we can fit two cities on the island? And I note the settler-start position is good for commerce and poprushing but pretty iffy for (non-poprushed) hammers.

btw what do you mean by '4 hammer hill? That looks to me like a standard plains-hill-forest (3 hammers)

markh said:

As it is a standard, archipelago map with 17 civs I expect each civ to have its own island. According to the picture we may have space for 2 or 3 cities on our own island if the island does not have more room to the NE. From the picture I see that coast is running up the whole way N, but we cannot see what is in the NE, yet. As Sam already mentioned we have to choose carefully which cities we take as we have to keep them.

Click to expand...

I tried a couple of standard archipelago maps. The first one I was on a snaky type island with three other civs. The second one I was by myself but with lots of larger islands (with civs) within reach by galley.

I don't think we can assume all civs will have their own island. It's far more likely that we'll have at least one, if not more, islands with two or more civs.

Whilst it's nice to start with mining and hunting it does mean that we lack the basic starting techs such as the Wheel, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry so we'll probably have to self research those. Obviously getting Sailing is a priority as well. That single coast tile to the NW looks like a hint to me. All in all we have quite a bit of research to do. Choosing the order of research should be interesting.

EDIT: Just realised I haven't even mentioned BW and if necessary archery.

My tech order suggestion would be Fishing>BW>Sailing

I think that we need to prioritize research and contact above anything else early on. That means being able to work the coast and whip workboats for exploration.

I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.

Also, like Simon, I'm not sure about settling in place. I never like using up a floodplain or a forest...but more importantly, space may be at a premium, and if it looks like we could fit a couple good cities in that area rather than 1 great one, we may want to try doing that. I'd suggest exploring the south coast with our settler the first turn, and sending the scout to the wooded 3 hammer hill. We should be able to see a large portion of coast and the rest(or at least most) our our island then and be better able to judge where to settle.

We may want to settle 2E. that gives us both floodplains, forests, spice, 1 clam, and some unknowns to the E of it. Then we could fit a city N next to the other spice and a city on the W island could get that second clam.

We should take out a couple at least AIs, but we should prioritize contact and diplomacy. Resource trading as soon as possible is a must, even if we have to trade our only source of them. Finally, if we've got copper on our island, we could do some early cross-island warring, otherwise we may want to wait for macemen.

Something else to discuss is whether we want to try to take advantage of the philosophical trait that Peter has. Do we want to run a specialist economy? Perhaps try for the Parthenon and gear our research around the techs that the AI won't research and that GP will? We definitely want an Engineer or two that we can keep around to build the UN.

Do we go for an early Lighthouse/Colossus? Oracle slingshot of some kind? Pyramids for Representation and GE points?

Hopefully early next week I'll run some tests to see how achievable it is to build wonders with this setup.

Thrallia said:

My tech order suggestion would be Fishing>BW>Sailing

Click to expand...

I concur that fishing is a good tech to go for first. The real benefit of fishing is that once we have it, we can work sea tiles, which means that whatever we decide to research next we can do much more quickly if an urgent need arises. I'd like to know more of the map before making a decision on what should come after fishing.

First unit to build has surely gotta be a warrior (coz, umm, until we get fishing, what else could it be? )

Thrallia said:

I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.

Click to expand...

I'm more wary, though open to pursuasion. I totally agree on the need for contact, but realistically, on a map this crowded, our nearest neighbours will prob contact us soon enough without our devoting too many resources to finding them. And prior to writing/open borders, how far past our nearest neighbours will our workboats get...? OTOH we do need to get our nearby terrain mapped out ASAP to find resources etc.

Thrallia said:

Also, like Simon, I'm not sure about settling in place. I never like using up a floodplain or a forest...but more importantly, space may be at a premium, and if it looks like we could fit a couple good cities in that area rather than 1 great one, we may want to try doing that. I'd suggest exploring the south coast with our settler the first turn, and sending the scout to the wooded 3 hammer hill. We should be able to see a large portion of coast and the rest(or at least most) our our island then and be better able to judge where to settle.

Click to expand...

Would it work if whoever gets the first play moves the scout to that hill and the settler E-SE as you suggest, then plays the scout (not settler) 2nd turn as appropriate, depending what is seen from the hill, then posts a screenshot so we can then discuss best place to settle?

Thrallia said:

Something else to discuss is whether we want to try to take advantage of the philosophical trait that Peter has. Do we want to run a specialist economy? Perhaps try for the Parthenon and gear our research around the techs that the AI won't research and that GP will? We definitely want an Engineer or two that we can keep around to build the UN.

Click to expand...

My own view is that philosophical makes the parthenon less useful not more useful. Without philosophical, you get 50% more GPPs for having the parthenon. (Which actually translates to 20-30% more great people over the course of a full game because of the way each great person gets more expensive). With philosophical, you get 100% extra GPPs without parthenon, or 150% with parthenon, so building the parthenon only gives you an additional 25%. Which is probably something like 15% more great people (Of course that's 15% of a bigger number )

I think we certainly do want to take advantage of the philosophical trait by setting up a city somewhere as a great person farm, but I'm not sure there's much benefit to doing more than that. I'm with you on making sure we get a great engineer at some point.

DynamicSpirit said:

First unit to build has surely gotta be a warrior (coz, umm, until we get fishing, what else could it be? )

Click to expand...

Worker? However I agree that a warrior is a good first build, partly so we have some defence and also to let the city grow.

DynamicSpirit said:

Thrallia said:

I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.

Click to expand...

I'm more wary, though open to pursuasion. I totally agree on the need for contact, but realistically, on a map this crowded, our nearest neighbours will prob contact us soon enough without our devoting too many resources to finding them. And prior to writing/open borders, how far past our nearest neighbours will our workboats get...? OTOH we do need to get our nearby terrain mapped out ASAP to find resources etc.

Click to expand...

I can appreciate the thinking. Circumavigation is always nice to have. OTOH workboats do take a while to build. If we're thinking about an early war or two then barracks do tend to help.

DynamicSpirit said:

Would it work if whoever gets the first play moves the scout to that hill and the settler E-SE as you suggest, then plays the scout (not settler) 2nd turn as appropriate, depending what is seen from the hill, then posts a screenshot so we can then discuss best place to settle?

Click to expand...

As I was intending to post a similar suggestion I think this is a good idea. Can I also suggest that grid lines and resources are turned on when the screenshot is taken. It really does give more info.

If we're talking about wonders then the Oracle for Metal Casting or Code of Laws is also worth considering. However for all wonders it really depends on whether we have two or more productive cities as we don't really want to tie up our only productive city.

The reason I thought 2 workboats, is because of the fact that in my tech line BW would quickly be finished if we were using the clams for faster research. Then we would revolt to Slavery and just whip out both workboats...it only takes 2 turns and 1 pop to whip a workboat out.

We should definitely send one out, I thought perhaps two, but it is true that they'll be blocked by culture until we get OB with people anyway.

Oracle for MC would be good because it would give us the chance for an early Colossus, which would really kickstart our research on an archipelago map. The least risky wonders to go for are going to be Lighthouse and Colossus-they require a lighthouse and forge to be built, which means it takes forever for the AI to bother building them. Oracle would be nice, but it might be hard to get with all the spiritual and industrious civs out there.

A Worker or settler should wait until we've got the clams upgraded so we can get a large amount of food for the worker/settler.

Edit: I also agree that doing the exploring and then posting the new screenshot is a great idea. It'll help make sure we get the best location for what we want out of the game.

Edit2: mark or Sam, which of you is our 'captain' or 'spokesman'? Have we contacted Htadus yet?

I fully agree that the first player will do a little scouting and posts a screenshot for the team to decide where to settle.

As first build I would also go for a warrior. Remember what happened to team FUBAR in SGOTM2 although we have a slightly different situation here.

I think I have to start on studying wonders. I tend to not build any in my single player games, so I am not that used to their effects.

Do we need a captain ?

If we do not hear anything from Htadus until tomorrow I will PM him.

markh said:

Do we need a captain ?

If we do not hear anything from Htadus until tomorrow I will PM him.

Click to expand...

I think AlanH usually likes to have a nominated contact point. Although usually he has nominated somebody in the team lists and it's then up to the team to agree whether they'll go with that person or someone else. I don't really mind being nominated but I'm not that bothered if mark or Thrallia wants it. Especially since our past captains seem to have been struck down by a hoodoo.

I actually PM'd Htadus yesterday. However since he hadn't logged in since Nov. 21 it may not have been seen yet.

Gythaar answered a question in the maintenance thread that the map was archepelago and not small islands. I think there is a high probability of having 1 Civ (and maybe more) very close. This would lend itself to a quick worker steal if available, but more importantly makes a settler an early priority. Not only does a second city keep us from getting hemmed in before we are ready to take out our neighbor but lends itself to working on an early wonder quicker if we go down that path. I think build order of warrior(barracks) until we can get a workboat makes sense, but then I would build a worker, chop a settler and chop another warrior. BW to follow fishing then sailing followed by worker techs leading to horse. I think we will be extremely lucky to find copper close and will have to "borrow it" from a neighbor.

If early exploring doesn't find a Civ close then I think it would be safe enough to chop a workboat (or galley) for exploring. We should be closer to researching Writing by then to fully utilize the boat(s) with open borders. QUESTION? -Do we try and open borders with all Civs as soon as possible or are there some we should wait on?

Dagnabit said:

I think there is a high probability of having 1 Civ (and maybe more) very close.

Click to expand...

It has to be like this. It is a standard map as an archipelago and 17 rivals + ourselves. There will not be too much room.

I also wonder how aggressive the AIs will be in the beginning. If we have a close neighbour and we go for a worker first would an AI declare war that soon to take us out ? Does anybody have any experience with such a scenario ?

markh said:

I also wonder how aggressive the AIs will be in the beginning. If we have a close neighbour and we go for a worker first would an AI declare war that soon to take us out ? Does anybody have any experience with such a scenario ?

Click to expand...

As I recall you get a hidden -1 on relations. According to Blake's Better AI thread a prerequisite for an AI declaring war is that their movement is blocked. There are number of other conditions that have to be met before an AI declares war but apparently that is the first. Didn't we have aggressive AI in the last game? I'll have to check.

EDIT: Just checked and yes we did have aggressive AI. Of course there was a bit more real estate available in that game. While playing a test game I was backstabbed by Monty (who else?) and he really was not willing to make peace either.

well in the last SGOTM, Izzy declared war on us for no apparent reason at least twice lol

Dagnabit's build order sounds good, although I'd stress us building two workboats and either using one on the clams and exploring with the other, or using both on clams for very fast building of workers and settlers(if we end up settling in place, that is)...If I recall, they'd both give us +5 food, so we'd have something like 10 food/hammers going toward workers/settlers very quickly.

as for a captain, I also don't think we really need one other than the fact that Alan likes having one person to go to per team. I guess I could do that, but I'd prefer Sam or mark, as they are the 'oldest' geezers, and my attendance last SGOTM suffered sometimes

We've had a number of posts so far discussing a range of subjects. I thought I would try and summarise what seems to be mostly agreed, what we know and what's outstanding together with my thoughts.

Agreed/Mostly agreed

• Move scout to 3 hammer hill (not sure why I thought it was 4 hammers) and move settler 1E.
• Post screenshot of land discovered so far (preferably with grid lines and resources switched on). Team then discusses further.
• Warrior as first build seems to have general agreement.
• Start Fishing as first tech. Bronze working suggested as second tech with Sailing as third tech.

What's known

• Judging by the directions of the resource indicator arrows we are south of the equator.
• Known facts posted by Gyathaar. Map is archipelago. Goody huts removed on starting island.

Outstanding Issues

• Where do we settle? - As stated above we are waiting for the screenshot. Interesting that nobody has mentioned settling on the three hammer hill.
• What is our second build? - Worker has been suggested. As our city may not have grown to two by then perhaps we might start a workboat and then switch to worker when we grow.
• What is our second tech? - I'm happy with the idea of BW. If, as I suspect, we find no copper on our island then I would suggest Agriculture and Animal Husbandry next to see if we have horses for chariots. An alternative would be Archery and Sailing to visit othr islands.
• Do we want to go for a wonder or two and if so what? - Stonehenge is a possibilty to grow our city borders but getting Mysticism and building obelisks is probably better. The Great Lighthouse, Colossus and the Oracle have all been mentioned. My view is that we want a couple of productive cities to go down this route.
• Who do we have OB with? - We can't have OB until we get Writing. If we haven't settled our island by then I would be inclined to say no until that's done unless it turns out to be quite large. After that I think it will depend on who's asking and how powerful they are rather than a blanket yes.
• Who's captain/nominated contact? - I don't mind doing it but I've no problem if mark or Thrallia want to do it instead.

EDIT: Crossposted with Thrallia. I've left my original post unaltered. I won't be surprised if I've overlooked something.

Having another go at playing a map with 17 civs. As far as diplo goes I've decided that trying to keep track of who likes whom and trying to avoid demerits for 'trading with our worst enemy' and 'refusing to stop trading with our worst enemy' is going to be a real bummer.