SGOTM 09 - Fifth Element

BtS SGOTM 09 - Back to the Future

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 9 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 is the second Beyond the Sword SGOTM. Thanks, Gyathaar

You are Pericles of Greece. You have travelled back to 4000 BC, but you took with you a knowledge of several modern technologies. Your task is now to return to the modern era as fast as possible, and to reach for the stars.

This is a Quick speed, Monarch difficulty game on a Standard sized mystery map. There are no goody huts, no events and no city razing.

Pericles is Philosophical and Creative. The Phalanx is your unique unit, replacing the Axeman; and the Odeon unique building replaces the Colosseum. As well as your usual starting techs, Hunting and Fishing, you brought with you a comprehensive library of text books.

The Objective
All victory conditions are enabled, but laurels will be awarded to teams with the quickest Space victories.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.17, using HoF Mod 3.17.001.

If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in version 3.17 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

As there is no Mac version of BtS, Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows version on their system.

Schedule

• The Team threads will open shortly.
• The start files will be published here on Friday, March 27.
• The latest Save for your team will be linked on the Progress and Results Page throughout the game.
• Please plan to complete the game within three months of the start date.
• NOTE: Barring unforeseen disasters there will be a four month final deadline.
  I shall declare winners and losers from those teams that have finished on July 27, 2009.

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


Map Parameters

• Playable Leader/Civ - Pericles of the Greek Empire.
• Characteristics - Philosophical and Creative, starts with Hunting and Fishing
• You and all the AI also know Fascism, Scientific Method, Physics, Medicine, Flight, Machinery, Replaceable Parts and Superconductors
• Unique Unit - Phalanx (Axeman)
• Unique Building - Odeon (Colosseum)
• Difficulty - Monarch
• Game Speed - Quick (330 turns)
• World size - Standard
• Rivals - Probably
• Landform - Mystery
• Environment - Not saying
• Other settings - No city razing, No goodie huts, No events

Notes

• Please visit the [URL="http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439]Civ4 SGOTM reference thread[/URL] to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the teams with the fastest Spaceship victories, and the Wooden Spoons for the finishing team with the lowest final score.
  
• 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, and the best of luck

Index of Fifth Element turnset reports for SGotM09:
The linked post has a link to the thread which opens the entire page.

SGotM09 results page

01- turn 000-008 - 04/06 - Sweetacshon (1) - a new adventure begins, after a debate in Murky's style - Myst in, revolt to PS and Env.
02- turn 008-015 - 04/07 - Unclethrill (1) - size 3, first worker done, Masonry in
03- turn 015-023 - 04/12 - Greatbeyond (1) - Wheel + Med in, worker #2 done
04- turn 023-031 - 04/15 - Simon_c (1) - PH + Wri in, City #2 settled
05- turn 031-037 - 04/19 - Berserks01 (1) - cruising in quiet seas
06- turn 037-044 - 04/22 - Sweetacshon (2) - cruising to Oracle, some MM mistake, but OK 1 less turn on math.
07- turn 044-054 - 04/23 - Blubmuz (1) - CS sling, GW in, 2 more AIs met, AH, Pot, Min, BW, Agri, archery, IW in trade, Alpha and currency researched.
08- turn 054-062 - 04/28 - Mesix (1) - MC researched, city #3 founded
09- turn 062-069 - 04/29 - Unclethrill (2) - Paper in, Pyramids... hope
10- turn 069-077 - 05/04 - Greatbeyond (2) - Pyr/Rep in, 4th city almost, Circumnavigated! met Shaka
11- turn 077-084 - 05/07 - Simon_c (2) - 4th city founded, 2nd (3rd) GS settled, Edu in
12- turn 084-091 - 05/11 - Mesix (2) - 3 cities founded, one in wrong position. Useless buildings built.
13- turn 091-098 - 05/15 - Blubmuz (2) - GE born, Lib almost, last city founded
14- turn 098-105 - 05/19 - Unclethrill (3) Lib for Rifling, Theo, cruising
15- turn 105-112 - 05/21 - Simon_c (3) - lot of techs in trade
16- turn 112-118 - 05/25 - Greatbeyond (3) traded for Oprics, finish Nationalism, start Astro
17- turn 118-124 - 05/26 - Sweetacshon (3) - Babylonian war started, as planned. Finish Astro, start Chem
18- turn 124-129 - 05/28 - Mesix (3) Economics almost in
19- turn 129-137 - 05/31 - Blubmuz (3) Economics (GM), Ge born, DR, Chem almost, Baylon out!
20- turn 137-144 - Unclethrill (4) Portuguese war started, Versailles built
21- turn 144-149 - 06/06 - Simon_c (4) - war almost as planned, Demo almost in, GE born
22- turn 149-155 - 06/11 - Greatbeyond (4) - Portugal out, corps in.
23- turn 155-160 - 06/15 - Sweetacshon (4) - cruising to space
24- turn 160-165 - 06/21 - Mesix (4)
25- turn 165-170 - 09/23 - Blubmuz (4) Cruising to space, no news
26- turn 170-175 - 06/26 - Unclethrill (5) - Cruising to space, Sushi founded
27- turn 180-185 - Simon_c (5)
28- turn 185-190 - Greatbeyond (5)
29- turn 190-195 - Sweetacshon (5)
30- turn 195-200 - Mesix (5)

Fifth Element playing rules:

Final target: Launch max turn 190 Win on 196
Intermediate: Liberalism turn 103, for Rifling Actual: turn 101!
Quick=330 turns
HoF record (Standard, quick, monarch, Hannibal) t 241 (but it seems a poor game)

Planned Portuguese war start: turn 140!Actual: 141

Short guide to Paratroopers warfare
Road map for the final rush

Roster
Sweetacshon - UP - save on turn 195 or after victory
Mesix - on deck (or game over if he agrees)
Blubmuz
Unclethrill
Simon_c
Greatbeyond - resting
---------------------
Berserks01 - Standby

TS 27 goals:
research: go with the path to Fusion
Trades: Watch the alerts and every turn F4 for techs and resources + F10 and city tour.
demands: show them the direction to Hell for any demand. But gently. If Shaka ask some reasonable item, give him
Cities:
...
GPersons: If GS, settle. If GSpy, destroy your PC. If a GE, keep him at sleep: some WW can be rushed
Workers: chop everything right out any BFC, but not Pindus: we need useless FPs to spread forests.
Airship: the map is known. We'll use it to recon in wartime. Do what you want.
Religion: we'll never adopt a religion.
Civics: we're well as we are.
Espionage: Now we can set all to 1.

Time schedule - updated 09/06/12

Checking in.
Welcome back to the old mates, and welcome aboard to the 2 new members, Simon_c and Unclethrill!

Let's try to see all the members before start the discussion about where to move the damn scout.

FYI i'm good on SC (surerly not as Dynamic is), but a disaster on quick: i need to play some test game, i guess.

Anyway, most of the usual strategies will be useless with the modern techs.

Checking in.

I'm a disaster with both SC and quick

I'll play a couple of test games to see how it goes.

Sgotm is back! :woot: I'm rubbish at space due to losing focus in the late game, thinking the game is won and being inefficient. I don't attempt it often at higher levels, but at monarch and with harsh SG teammates, I should be able to stay on the straight and narrow.

Anyone mocked up a test game yet?

Checking in.

I don't normally go for Space, or quick, but I'm a solid monarch player.

Turn reports can be a bit rambling, as I tend to write as I play. Hope that's OK.

Checking in as well. If we can come to some kind of a consensus on what the most likely "secret" game settings are, I can throw together several test games. I think it would benefit us to play several test games apiece. Probably just the first 100 turns or so would give an idea how things would go.

Simon_c said:

Turn reports can be a bit rambling, as I tend to write as I play. Hope that's OK.

Click to expand...

So do I. The good thing about HoF mod is that you can just press alt-e (e for entry, I guess) to write directly to the autolog ingame. I find writing "finished a workboat" quite tedious anyway, so I find it very useful. Ramble away!

Secrets for the test: I dunno... I suppose the first cab off the rank should be just standard settings, with random AI, say on a fractal map.

Sweetacshon said:

Sgotm is back! :woot:

Click to expand...

I could've sworn there was a :woot:!! I guess I'll go with instead.

Hey all,

Checking in. Headed to bed but will make a decent post as soon as I get to work.

Thrilldaddy!!

Hi,

Just a reminder incase not everybody read the signup thread.

I will be offline for at least a week, maybe two starting the 1st of April. (Shoulder operation ) I'll try to keep you all updated on my status, but for not figure at being off line completely for 1 week, and not playing for 2 weeks.

@ Simon I've seen your post and took note of your problem, don't worry and best wishes for it.

@ Unclethrill: news about Mesix? he's the only one missing.

When he'll give a sign we'll start the discussion.

@ GB If you want to set up a test game, just remember to add the modern techs, just to see how it works. Can we use the Oracle for rifling?

I'm here. I haven't had Internet at home (until today...it's fixed ) for almost a month! Not much time to use the Internet at work the past couple days either . Unclethrill told me that the thread was up...and here I am.

Just saying hi, probably not going to do this one as I'm not a big space race fan really. Probably will monitor some of the other teams as well periodically so won't be adding anything. Good luck to you guys.

culdeus said:

Just saying hi, probably not going to do this one as I'm not a big space race fan really. Probably will monitor some of the other teams as well periodically so won't be adding anything. Good luck to you guys.

Click to expand...

That's a shame, culdeus. There'll still be ample room for warring, you know?

Mesix, I love the "Bugeyes" Baker avatar. Is that especially for the space race? I watched Genesis of the Daleks recently, actually, and there were bugeyes all over the place. Hilarious.

Agreed!!!
A SR game begins in the second half, but in the first one you need to expand and to ensure resources.
War is a must just try to wage it early, then the tech/prod will arrive.

I dunno, the quick speed plus space race is so far out of my element. I really don't think I'd have much useful to offer here.

Plus, quick just irritates me. Just the act of moving settlers 6 tiles takes 1000s of years.

Sweetacshon said:

That's a shame, culdeus. There'll still be ample room for warring, you know?

Mesix, I love the "Bugeyes" Baker avatar. Is that especially for the space race? I watched Genesis of the Daleks recently, actually, and there were bugeyes all over the place. Hilarious.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

Thanks for the props on the new Avatar. It is actually a coincidence that it fits so well with the theme of this game. I just felt that it was time for a change from my barbarian warrior avatar that I had for awhile.

Perhaps in recognition of old Dr. Who (and the time travel and space colony theme of this GOTM challenge) we can name our capital city Gallifrey.

I was actually always amused by some of his destinations: Planet of Evil, City of Death, and so on. Why would anyone go there in the first place?