SGOTM 04 - Fifth Element

Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 4 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
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.08 only.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.08.003 for Windows. There are insufficient Mac players to form a Mac team. so it will be played in Windows only.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of February 23.

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



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Ragnar of The Vikings
Rivals - 7 civs including Gandhi (who is locked in war with Ragnar)
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, cylindrical, medium sea level, temperate
Game Speed - Epic
Diplomatic Victory Disabled
All other settings are defaults

Notes

• Please visit the C-IV Warlords SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• Warlords v.2.08 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• Awards will be given to teams who achieve Space defeats to India 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.

Please enjoy the game

First post... whooppee!!!

Looks like the usual suspects are back (if we ever change our name, I vote for that ), plus an addition, The Sansman. Be welcome!! We are so close to finishing #3, I'd prefer not to start this one yet, what do you guys think? Sans, feel free to check out our #3 thread if you haven't already. This one's going to be tough (er than a purely diplo victory against 16 AI).

I'm here.
Welcome Sansman.
Yes, i agree with Sweeta's post, we have to finish our #3, we are in a crucial phase, let's wait...
Last but not least, i really don't figure the strategy to let an AI win in the fastest way being permanently at war (if we can make peace we can give some techs, then declare 10 turns later, but we can't).

btw someone knows about the WW? i hope being locked at war doesn't affect our WW, otherwise we are ruined.

I agree, finish SGOTM3 first. We are (hopefully) close to a victory. And welcome to Sansman! I second the offer to check out our SGOTM3 thread, where we are (hopefully) in the final stages of a true diplo victory with 17 rivals.

I have a few ideas for intentionally losing. They involve:

1) Making friends with Gandhi's friends, and gifting techs to them. I think that we absolutely MUST have a religion shared between us, and also shared with third parties (particularly, say, MM, if he is in the game). That way we trade and gift techs with as many friends as possible to keep the global tech pace as ferocious as possible, and ensure that Gandhi is cut in on the action. Our financial trait should go a long ways in helping the tech pace stay hardcore.

2) Founding and taking good cities and building them up, only to "gift" them to Gandhi via leaving them undefended at strategic moments, particularly good production cities towards the end of the game. If we can build, say, the Space Elevator, and then give it to Gandhi, I'm all for it.

3) Aggressive, excessive use of spies and sabotage on all civs BUT Gandhi to ensure that it's Gandhi that wins the victory. Hell, maybe even nukes! I have a feeling that late game war may play a particularly crucial role in this game. Brush up on using those bombers and tank tactics!

4) Losing as few units to Gandhi as humanly possible, both for efficiency's sake, and for minimizing our WW.

5) Hopefully having much of our empire on a different continent than Gandhi's, to minimize the amount of actual conflict between us.

How does that sound?

I'm just checking in. I haven't had much time to think about this yet, but Civicide's thoughts seem like a good starting point.

Thank-you all for the welcome. I did not realize I would have check the Maintenance thread for knowing which team I would be placed with, thus my delayed check-in. Well I think the first thing I should do is read your current SGOTM thread.

I think you all should know a little about my Civ 4 playing history. I finally got a computer that could run Civ 4 in November and started playing then. In January I joined a couple SG games that were Warloads. I generally like to play with the slowest game speed on the largest map with as many civs as possible with Domination switched off. My goals tend to be to beat my opponents into submission (I usually leave them 1-3 cities) and go for a space victory at 2050. I started at noble but now when I have time (inbetween the SG games) I play at Prince, though I still have not finished one game on prince yet. Basically I am green and still need to learn a lot so please be patience with me and do not hesitate to point out when I am making/made a mistake. Or when I ask a silly question(s).

I'm here, although I'm going to be traveling again for a few days. I don't think I've ever intentionally lost before.

At the least, let's get that scout moved to where we're going to move him and have a look at the lay of the land, this will give us some further discussion before we get into the meat of this game.

Welcome, Sansman!

Well how about we continue the "noob beginning" tradition and let Sans take the first TS?? If you just move the scout, then post a sceenshot, that'd be great, like Merum said. I'm not sure moving onto that hill will help our initial choice... what about moving him NW to 1S of the pigs?

Sansman, there are no silly questions. We've all been there, and I know for one, I'll be there again.

Oh, absolutely. N00bs must start!

Sansman, a review of any of our previous SGOTM threads should relieve you of any concern over asking dumb questions. We all have our moments, and manage to rein each other back into the fold.

You know, I was reading your current SGOTM and saw that there is a new tradition of letting the noobie screw things up at the beginning . I was planning on grabbing the save and doing the Scout move. But I thought I would wait to see if you all would want this. As it so happens I came up in one of the SGs I am part of and thus will be busy tonight. If it does not get too late I will do the move and post a picture tonight, tomorrow night at the latest. Please let me know this is alright.

checking in for SGOTM 4

Welcome to our team Sansman...

The Sansman said:

You know, I was reading your current SGOTM and saw that there is a new tradition of letting the noobie screw things up at the beginning . I was planning on grabbing the save and doing the Scout move. But I thought I would wait to see if you all would want this. As it so happens I came up in one of the SGs I am part of and thus will be busy tonight. If it does not get too late I will do the move and post a picture tonight, tomorrow night at the latest. Please let me know this is alright.

Click to expand...

By all means go ahead. I agree with Sweets, move the scout NW NW to beneath the pigs. This will give us a good idea if a move along the lines of 1W will be palatable for our opening city placement.

Agreed with the scout move, kick us off, pal.

Ok I guess this is my got it. I did the move and here is the result.

Well, in place looks alright with me... in fact it's science central.... well, no rivers for the extra commerce, and to tell the truth it's an ideal GP farm with some production potential for early units/ wonders. OK scratch all that, and I will sit on the fence until we scout a bit... in any case, settle in place is my vote.

So what does Rags have? Aggresive/ financial, berserker (mace), and trading post (lighthouse). He starts with fishing and hunting. So maybe fishing boat first (working the forested plains hill to max hammers), then warrior, worker (or 2), settler, with judicial chopping, and possibly a tilt at the mids/ oracle double? Ambitious, yet doable on Monarch, with so many hills and trees about. So... we're going to need agri then AH early,but considering we can wb, maybe mining> BW first up?

Oi. With that gold, and all those hills, combined with tons of extra food, a move 2W is looking MIGHTY tempting. That would be just a sick production city.

Merum pops his head in from the airport lounge to say...

2W loses us the coast, which is 3 gold per worked tile, plus it loses us the clams. I think we should settle in place, and build a second city ASAP over by the gold. There's also a river and a bunch of hills there to be worked.

If I were to make any move at all, it would be 2N to the other blue circle, but not knowing what's up there, it may not pay off otherwise. It would give us a nice mix of hills, food, and commerce in our capitol, though.

I think we should settle in place and use the scout to find out what we have around us. Also I should be able to play tonight, so how many turns should I do?

Welcome Sansman, i hope you will have fun with our team.
Yep, the "noob thing" began with me, and now it's a Fifth Element tradition.

Yes, settle in place, warrior/work boat/warrior/worker/settler:
i wanna that gold mined ASAP.

If you like you can start to play, i think mining should be our first research, then the wheel or AH.

It's Monarch, so we could skip the first warrior... unless Ghandi starts next door... surely not.

15 turns/ 10 while at war, sans.