Silk01 - SG for SG noobs, noble or prince level

silk1976 · Jan 9, 2009

I've never played a succession game, and I'd like to. Since there don't seem to be any open, I'm taking a suggestion offered and starting one myself.

I dont have any particular story line in mind - mostly this will be an exercise to get my feet wet with SG's, and the requisite level of thinking and strategizing required to improve my game play. Therefore, while anyone is welcome to join (especially a veteran who would be willing to guide us along), I'd think it ideal that the intended audience be looking for something similar.

For difficulty level - I've been playing on Noble - so I'm looking for the game to be either noble or prince level. This does not preclude anyone who has been playing on a lower level who would like to make the jump to noble or even prince. Afterall, we are here to learn and have fun!

I'm thinking that a good number of players would be 4 or 5, and that we'd be playing generally with the DM(rip) rules:

Spoiler :

Alpha: The quality of your report outweighs the quality of your play. We’re here to have fun, and, of course, winning is fun, but losing in style is preferable to a boring win.

Bravo: Reports should be detailed, with plenty of screen shots and player commentary, explanations, musings, etc; an auto-log dump will not suffice. Shots of the F9 screens and overview shots of the empire are nice too, once in a while.

Charlie: Punctuality rocks! “24/48” means post a "got it" within 24 hours of when the last save was posted, and play within 48 hours of that ‘got it.’ Waiting 47 hours to ask for a skip is lame. Punk out two times in a row, and you’ll be dropped from the roster. Skips and swaps are fine, but try to let us know sooner, rather than later.

Delta: Major game decisions (war/peace declarations, religion swaps, city placement, etc) should be arrived at via group consensus.
1. If the team disagrees with you, either argue your case better, or do it their way. Do NOT just blow them off and do it your way because it's your turn.
2. However, if there’s no consensus and you’re up, do it your way and explain why. Conversely, if someone else is up, don't whine when they do it their way.
3. Similarly, overruling techs or city builds is rude and should be done via consensus, barring an emergency.
4. In extraordinary situations, sometimes an opportunity presents itself that the group didn't foresee. If the consequences of it are great, players should stop, and refer the question to the group.

Echo: Being a better player does not give you the right to belittle anyone else or their play. Other people are going to disagree with you on major decisions; get used to the idea, and play nice. If not, take your ball and go home.

Foxtrot: Thread spam is good. Trash talking, poking fun, gentle ribbing, virtual noogies, and generally horsing around are all encouraged, but don’t be rude.

Golf: Automate sparingly.
1. Workers should almost never be automated, except perhaps late-game or building a trade network. However, if you have to, set your game options to “disallow automated worker forest chopping” and “keep previous improvements.”
2. Use of the “Emphasis” buttons is fine, but let the group know and explain your reasoning (specialization is a major game decision). If you prevent growth in a city, let the group know and remind them to take it off. Do NOT let the governor select build orders.
3. Sending units on go-to routes that last beyond your set is acceptable only if they’re heading for a rally point or if you otherwise inform your teammates.

Hotel: NEVER fortify Great People. Is it so hard to push the spacebar 15 times??

India: Sign spamming is rude. Signs can be helpful reminders, but too many signs makes them easily ignored. Once a sign is no longer valid, delete it. [The only exception to this are city specialization signs.]

Players:
1) myself (silk1976)
2) cripp7
3) Trynthlas
4) dualmaster
5) Coercivity

Oh, and one other thing: BTS 3.17 with the BUG 3.5.1 mod.

I'll post this SG in the registration thread.

Let me know if interested!

cripp7 · Jan 9, 2009

count me in, you need to have some kind of game plan . Like all domination, going space, build all wonders (current succession game of the month), etc. etc.

silk1976 · Jan 9, 2009

I had kinda figured that a game plan would be decided upon by the players - but if it is needed in order to pique interest, then I'd say domination.

Reason being that it seems to be more difficult than diplomatic victory (where you can just build UN, vassalize and put it up to vote) and space race. Also, domination requires a little bit more thinking in terms of war, empire economy, and other aspects that I'd imagine players at my skill level would need work on.

Trynthlas · Jan 9, 2009

If you play noble, definitely bump it up a difficulty level (or two) for a SG. Having a team, plus being forced to take your time and plan every 10-20 turns or so makes a HUUUUGE difference in how well you play.

That said, I do enjoy an SG where there isn't a weird variant (even though I love 'em) and the only goal is to play solid and figure out your 'win strategy' after you've seen the map and are somewhat established. If that's the plan, I'm in!

silk1976 · Jan 9, 2009

Trynthlas said:
If you play noble, definitely bump it up a difficulty level (or two) for a SG. Having a team, plus being forced to take your time and plan every 10-20 turns or so makes a HUUUUGE difference in how well you play.

That was my thinking with being ok with prince level - but I wasn't sure on that logic. Glad to hear it though. Honestly I'd even be ok above prince (what is it - monarch?) - I'd probably still learn as much - but I didn't want to tease interest from higher level players who would then be disappointed and discouraged with my noob-ness.

Trynthlas said:
That said, I do enjoy an SG where there isn't a weird variant (even though I love 'em) and the only goal is to play solid and figure out your 'win strategy' after you've seen the map and are somewhat established. If that's the plan, I'm in!

That is exactly the point! Great - I'll add you to the list! I figure variants that restrict my style can come later when my skills are more adaptable on the fly.

dualmaster · Jan 9, 2009

Long time lurker, first time poster. I'd be interested in joining this SG game if there is space available. I usually play at Monarch but Prince would be pretty comfortable for my first SG.

I'd say make a plan as the game progresses.

silk1976 · Jan 9, 2009

With dualmaster added - we have four people interested.

I'd like to get started on deciding on parameters, so we can get moving before too long. During this process, if a fifth person decides to join, he/she can speak up to join in, as well as chime in for opinion on how things should be set up.

So, to start things off, I propose:
1) Prince difficulty
2) Continents - this will allow us to concentrate on local opposition first, but having a naval presence will ultimately be necessary
3) Temperate climate - forests can provide some flexibility, where jungle and desert do not - at least to the same degree.
4) Medium sea level - I see no reason to go with anything else.
5) Huge world size - I like bigger maps, and we'll get more AI's which will make things more difficult, but more fun because we might be able to get a world war going. Also with huge world size, we'll have a better chance of needing some of the late game air units.
6) Normal game speed - This one I could see being switched to Epic speed, for the benefits gained in war by the slower speeds.
7) Random leader (we'll see who we get).

So - obviously a pretty standard and vanilla start, nothing whacky.
Does anyone have any comments on the above - anything that should be changed?

I'd assume that with normal speed, we would do a standard 20 turns pre-1 AD, and 10 turns post-AD? If we go with epic speed - I'm not sure how that would change. Any thoughts?

Coercivity · Jan 9, 2009

I'm interested still. As I said in the earlier thread, I'm still playing my first noble game, but I've not noticed any real change in difficultly, so prince should be fine. What are the AI bonuses?

dualmaster · Jan 9, 2009

I vote for Epic speed.......Normal just goes by too fast. Not sure what makes reasonable turn sets on epic.
IMO huge maps can get pretty tedious, but since it is an SG it would be more bearable.
Other settings seem fine to me.

silk1976 · Jan 9, 2009

Ok, Coercivity is in - so that makes five. I'll mark the game as closed.

As for AI handicaps, this thread has an attachment with the handicap information. For the most part, it seems like there is anywhere from a 5-10% difference in costs and research speeds between noble and prince.

I've done a few spot checks of other SG (I figure that experience knows best), and am see both standard and huge size - although it seems a little more heavily weighted towards standard (maybe 70/30).

For epic games, I just checked one and saw the 20/10 turnset. Since the multiplier for epic is 1.5 (vs 1 for normal), I'd say we go with 30/15 turn sets. However, I think it'd be nice to be a little flexible with that when appropriate, using some logic in the stopping points. Makes no sense to go through a set of turns for war, and have to stop playing when you are 3 turns away from city capture/raze.

Oh - one other thing - geographic location.
I am on the east coast US - where is everyone else? That info might be useful in determining play order. I was figuring on going in sign-up order (I'll play the initial set as soon as everyone has agreed on settings) unless someone has a schedule conflict over the next day or two.

Trynthlas · Jan 9, 2009

Normal speed on a huge map doesn't really make sense for a SG (my opinion). Plus, Epic speed overall is the most balanced (not just my opinion, lots of others too

).

I'd say Epic on a Large map. Continents is fine.

On turnsets (for epic) first 2-3 should be 30 turns minimum. Personally, what I've adopted in the SGs I run is a philosophy of "play what makes sense, but no more than X turns" ...X is obviously based on the game speed and what's going on. Sometimes it's 30+ turns, sometimes it's 10 or less - basically just play until you hit a turn limit or a decision/stopping point.

We going with random leader?

dualmaster · Jan 9, 2009

Trynthlas said:
Normal speed on a huge map doesn't really make sense for a SG (my opinion). Plus, Epic speed overall is the most balanced (not just my opinion, lots of others too ).

I'd say Epic on a Large map. Continents is fine.

On turnsets (for epic) first 2-3 should be 30 turns minimum. Personally, what I've adopted in the SGs I run is a philosophy of "play what makes sense, but no more than X turns" ...X is obviously based on the game speed and what's going on. Sometimes it's 30+ turns, sometimes it's 10 or less - basically just play until you hit a turn limit or a decision/stopping point.

with everything

Trynthlas said:
We going with random leader?

Doesn't matter to me, but if we go random the start+leader should be shown prior to playing the first turnset so we can discuss some starting techs/builds and overall strategies. Based on other sample games and SGs, most of what I've learned have been in those types of discussions. If no one else offers an opinion soon, go ahead and roll a start.

I'm east coast US. Should be able to play about any time since I'm not involved in lots of other SG games like other people :lol:

.

silk1976 · Jan 10, 2009

Thanks for the feedback guys - I appreciate it.

So we'll go with Trynthlas suggestion of 30 turns for the first 2-3 sets, with modifications for what majes sense in terms of checkpoints and decisions.

We'll also go with Epic speed and large map - since that is a compromise between normal and huge (obviously)

For the leader - yeah I'd like to do random. That'll make at least one thing in this game interesting

I'll go ahead and roll a start, and post relevant info soon. I was originally going to wait until tomorrow morning, so that the other two players could chime in on starting parameters. In the end I decided against it because I wanted to get things rolling. If there are major objections from either coercivity or cripp7, the game can always be re-rolled - I have no problem with doing that.

silk1976 · Jan 10, 2009

Our ~~victim~~ leader:

Traits:
Expansive - +2 :health:

per city, double prod speed of granary and harbor, 25% faster production of worker.
Industrious - Wonder production speed increased 50%, double production of forge.

Starting techs:
Hunting
Mining

And, the start:

So here are my thoughts:
Capital City Location
- Settling in place yields 2 FP, a wine (that is a nice luxury to have right away!), and a sheep.
- I have a hunch that moving south would not be good. We have some water to the SE and it looks like a shore to the SW.
- Scout could move east to reveal more of what looks like another forest tile and either a plains or a grassland.
- Scout could move 2 W to the hill and see what the view is like.
- Looks like more forest to the north
- No tundra, no conifers, no jungle - nothing to indicate we are anywhere but the temperate zone of the map

At the moment, I'm thinking either settle in place, or possible move 1 north. Going 1 north we'd lose the sheep in the immediate radius, but we can absorb that somewhat with 2 FP tiles. We'd also gain more river tiles, which could come in handy for commerce/waterwheel later on.

Questions
Does anyone know whether expansive is like the imperialistic trait, where only :hammers:

and not

is doubled?

Tech
We start with mining, so there is the option of getting BW rather early. If we settle with the wine in immediate radius, we could work that tile for the extra :commerce:

to speed things along at the expense of city growth, if we think getting BW and possibly hooking copper is that important. Of course, we'll need a stone doughnut before too long for that.

Before too long, we'll have to get AH to hook the pigs.

I think we can hold off on agriculture for a bit with the FP's and the pigs.

Build order
This could depend on tech decision. I initially thought that building a worker first would be a slam dunk, but then it occured to me that with 2 FP's, we might end up getting a worker out before he has anything much useful to do. Instead, maybe get a warrior out to help w/exploration, and then at city size 2 with the extra FP and the expansive trait, the worker can come out rather quickly.

dualmaster · Jan 10, 2009

Industrious on prince.....resist...urge...to wonderspam...

I'd move scout 2N to see if there is anything good. Settling 1N would retain plains hills and all visible resources if there is something nice up there. Otherwise settle in place I guess. All those plains tiles are ugly.

Tech: I suggest agri/BW/AH/Wheel to start. Farm FP for :food:

. BW for chopping and AH for sheep, plus those will show nearby strategic res. Wheel to hook em up.

Build: Worker first. Agri should come in before the worker is finished. Farm flood plains/mine hills then start chopping when BW comes in.

Early wonders: I love the 'henge, we could probably chop it out pretty quick but might need to move myst up in the tech order. Otherwise lets see if we can find any nice rocks nearby.

I've never played Bismark so this should be fun. I've always wanted to :ar15:

with Panzers. Half price forges plus extra health from expansive sounds pretty good.

Trynthlas · Jan 10, 2009

hahaha, wee! Bismarck game #2 at the moment for me. Fun :lol:

I say move the scout 1E->1SE (to the forested hill) to see whether that water is a lake or actual coastline. It would be somewhat silly to settle 1 tile away from the coast, no?

Waterwheels are useless until late game, they don't provide enough benefits until you get all the techs (and maybe civics as well) that improve them. Don't plan around em. Now, river tiles could be useful when considering the levee bonus ... but again, that's later game. With the capitol city especially, we need to think about what will be best for the START and EARLY->MID game transition periods.

Settling in place looks ok. If there's not a resource in the BFC that we can't currently see due to fog, then we're pretty much guaranteed to have something else useful which will be revealed by (BW, AH, or IW)

Pretty much. Take a look in the spoiler for some analysis of the starting location based on some fog-gazing on my part

Spoiler :

regarding your question: Why would a bonus to food have anything to do with wonder or forge production? (yes it's just hammers

)

Techs: BW->Agri->AH. I think

I like the idea of finding copper, but if not we can at least chop. My early tech priorities here would be related to developing the city. We need farms, pasture, roads, and cottages. We already have mines

Build: Worker->Warrior-> ...hmmm

Worker first to put up mines, then whatever will best grow/improve the city from there.

Trynthlas · Jan 10, 2009

dualmaster said:
Industrious on prince.....resist...urge...to wonderspam...

I'd move scout 2N to see if there is anything good. Settling 1N would retain plains hills and all visible resources if there is something nice up there. Otherwise settle in place I guess. All those plains tiles are ugly.

Tech: I suggest agri/BW/AH/Wheel to start. Farm FP for . BW for chopping and AH for sheep, plus those will show nearby strategic res. Wheel to hook em up.

Build: Worker first. Agri should come in before the worker is finished. Farm flood plains/mine hills then start chopping when BW comes in.

Early wonders: I love the 'henge, we could probably chop it out pretty quick but might need to move myst up in the tech order. Otherwise lets see if we can find any nice rocks nearby.

I've never played Bismark so this should be fun. I've always wanted to with Panzers. Half price forges plus extra health from expansive sounds pretty good.

Stonehenge is meh, in my book.

Not entirely opposed to moving the scout 2N...and actually we could do that AND move the settler 1SE to the hill to take a look around. Yeah, it burns a turn or two but that isn't the end of the world, and we can see wth is around us.

I'm still voting for BW before Agri, we can grow off the floodplains without farming them and still work a plains hill mine or two for nice production. Plus, if we have a close neighbor and we DO have copper, can anyone say "axe rush" ?

Coercivity · Jan 10, 2009

I've only ever played normal speed but i hear epic is just everything x1.5
And how many AIs is in large?

I tend to settle in place and trust the map generator to have something nice in the BFC though is that affected by "iStartingLocPercent"?

build worker warrior
tech bw>ag>ah>wheel
i would have checked out if that was lake or coast with the scout

I have a feeling I'm going to be the noob dragging the team back so take my suggestions with a rather large grain of salt.

Also I'm east coast AUS (GMT+10 +1for summer)

silk1976 · Jan 10, 2009

Before starting, I'm going to wait a bit and see what cripp7 has to say, in the event it makes my decision making easier by producing a solid majority

For tech, I'm in agreement that we can hold off on agriculture. My feeling is that we start with mining, and have a decided advantage on locating copper - which can be beneficial if there is copper near us, or determining whether a nearby AI has some. Also, getting BW means we can :whipped:

that much sooner

I'm coming around to seeing the value in getting agriculture relatively soon, so that the capital can grow to optimal size (until happy cap) as soon as possible.
So I'm thinking:
BW -> Ag -> AH then probably wheel.

I like stonehenge as well - the free monuments are nice. However, I'd say we have a little bit of time before deciding whether we go that route.

For build, general concensus is worker then warrior. I can go along with that. At the moment, I'm thinking a second warrior after that. I've really been finding the value of scouting early lately - and building worker -> warrior -> worker would end up resulting in idle worker time due to tech research time. Plus, maybe we'll end up being next to an AI opponent defending with a single warrior when we have two and can capture his city early.

For settling, I'm thinking heading north if anything. For the initial city, I'd prefer it not be a coastal city because having those extra potential squares with forests can be beneficial (especially if we decide to chop and early wonder). So to me, at this point, determining whether its a small lake or a vast ocean is trivial. If its a small lake, it does us very little. If its a vast ocean, there should be plenty of coastline to settle another city near. Either way, we'll know soon enough.

If we end up wonder spamming - that is ok with me. Its a trait of our leader - so in my book mine as well take advantage of it as long as the wonders are useful to us.

And coercivity - I'm a relative noob as well. Thats why we are here and playing on prince when many SG's are monarch or higher!

cripp7 · Jan 10, 2009

I agree with everybody else BW>Ag>AH same with build order worker>warrior>?
Not so keen on henge unless stone around, depending on where copper and neighbors are.

Silk01 - SG for SG noobs, noble or prince level

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