SGOTM 10 - Fifth Element

[AlanH]

BtS SGOTM 10 - Armageddon

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 10 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.

In this, the third BtS SGOTM, Gyathaar wants nuclear devastation. Stalin of Russia starts in the Renaissance era in 1285 AD, in a world with five Aggressive AI civs. He is hell bent on world conquest, BUT he can only capture a city if he nukes it first.

It's a fight to the nuclear death in an Epic speed, Emperor difficulty game on a Small sized Big and Small map. There are no goody huts, no events, no city razing, no city flipping, no Vassals. Only Conquest is enabled.

It's a standard Renaissance start, so you get a lot of techs at the beginning. Cities are created with pop 2 and a few buildings. You start with two settlers, two longbows, one explorer and a worker. The AI start with two settlers, four longbows, two explorers and a worker.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using the new all-singing, all-dancing HoF Mod BUFFY-3.19.001. This HoF Mod version is available now. You can download it here.

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 3.19 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows game on their system.

Timetable
The game will start on Friday, August 7 .

Your start file, and then each submitted Save for your team, will be linked on the Progress and Results Page throughout the game. Please ensure that you only download your own team file.

The finish deadline is December 7 2009. If any team has not finished by this date they will be deemed to have retired, and will not be eligible for any awards.

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



Map Parameters

• Playable Leader/Civ - Stalin of the Russian Empire.
• Traits - Aggressive, Industrious.
• Unique Unit - Cossack (replaces Cavalry)
• Unique Building - Research Institute (replaces Laboratory)
• Renaissance Era start - turn 277, 1285 AD.
• Difficulty - Emperor
• Game Speed - Epic (473 turns)
• World size - Small
• Rivals - Five
• Landform - Big and Small
• Other settings - No city razing, No Culture Flips, No goodie huts, No events, Aggressive AI, No Vassals
• Victory Conditions - Conquest Only

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.
  
• Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the Fastest Conquest victory, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher. You will drop down the final ranking table* for each city that you capture without nuking it with a direct hit first. A "Capture" is defined as any method of obtaining a city other than by building it yourself using a settler. A "Capture" also includes retrieving a city you originally built but lost.
  
  *The final ranking will sort teams in the following order:
  1. Win, lose or retire. Wins go first. Retirements go last.
  2. For wins, the number of un-nuked cities captured. Zero missed cities go first.
  3. For wins, the finish date.
  4. For losses and retirements, final score will determine their rankings within those categories.
     
• 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.

Have fun.

[BLubmuz]

Index of Fifth Element turnset reports for SGotM10:
The linked post has a link to the thread which opens the entire page.

This is a Renaissance start game, starting in 1285 AD. The first turn is 0 as usual, and the game will arrive to 2050 AD on turn 473. This means we start on turn 277 of 750.
5 years/turn 1285 to 1700
2 years/turn 1700 to 1840
1 year /turn 1840 to 1940
6 months/turn from 1940

SGotM10 results page

01-t 000-010 09/05 - (r1p1) Greatbeyond - After 1 month of debates and tests we finally completed our opening.
02-t 010-017 09/07 - (r1p2) Culdeus - first caravel out, workers at work (what else?)
03-t 017-030 09/10 - (r1p3) Unclethrill - Edu in, Circum in!
04-t 030-040 09/12 - (r1p4) SunTzuWu - first settler out, cruising
05-t 040-050 09/14 - (r1p5) Blubmuz - 3rd city founded, 4th next turn, 2nd GS popped, cruising
06-t 050-060 09/19 - (r2p1) Greatbeyond - 4th city founded, cruising
07-t 060-070 09/22 - (r2p2) Unclethrill - First to Lib (t.66) for Econ, PP, our navy rules, setting up a defensive army
08-t 070-080 09/24 - (r2p3) SunTzuWu - Gandhi declares War!?! cruising, touching some iceberg... we can do better
09-t 080-092 09/26 - (r2p4) Blubmuz -PP in, peace with G, some bad luck in fights
10-t 092-105 09/28 - (r3p1) Unclethrill - Astro in, Chem almost, cruising, HE gained thanks to barbs
11-t 105-117 09/30 - (r3p2) SunTzuWu - Chem in, 7th city almost, lot of privateers
12-t 118-130 10/05 - (r3p3) Greatbeyond - Rifling in, 8th city on his way, cruising
13-t 130-143 10/07 - (r3p4) Unclethrill - more cities, more stolen workers
14-t 143-156 10/14 - (r4p1) SunTzuWu - lot of things
15-t 156-175 10/24 - (r4p2) Blubmuz - Steel, SM, Physics, GAge from GE
16-t 175-188 10/29 - (r4p3) Unclethrill - RR/MI in, Demo (traded) and Bio in, 3 last cities founded, next will be taken by nukes
17-t 188-198 11/02 - (r4p4) Greatbeyond - Sushi in!
18-t 198-208 11/05 - (r5p1) Culdeus - Combustion in
19-t 208-223 11/07 - (r5p2) Blubmuz - Flight and Elec in, Fission and Broadway next turn. Corps fully spreaded GS, GE and GG born.
20-t 223-235 11/10 - (r5p3) Unclethrill - MP in, Rocketry in, Radio next turn, 6 Tacs built
21-t 235-247 11/11 - (r6p1) Blubmuz - Radio + Ecology in, CR in. Churchill and Gandhi wiped. 7 Tacs used.
22-t 247-252 11/17 - (r6p2) Greatbeyond - War with Roosevelt started, 5 cities gone, AL in, GAge started
23-t 252-257 11/19 - (r6p3) Blubmuz - Roosevelt gone, started with Mao. Fascism in, Pentagon in.
24-t 257-263 11/25 - (r7p1) Unclethrill - Mao with 2 nuked cities, then the final push.
25-t 263-268 11/28 - (r7p2) Greatbeyond - Started the last war.
26-t 268-271 11/28 - (r7p3) Blubmuz Victory! >5K in game, >25K final score.

[BLubmuz]

Roster:

Greatbeyond - UP
Blubmuz - on deck
Unclethrill - resting

Mesix - lurker
Sweetacshon - lurker
Culdeus - lurker
SunTzuWu - Resigned

TS 26 plan: (until victory)

kill'em, kill'em all!!!


The war phase is entered in 1930.

Final Game turns plan

Seeing my tests, the game can be over between turn 270 and 280
Schedule 1 turn 188, 10/30

Spoiler:

We're now (10/30) at turn 188 (1875) every turn worth a year until turn 252 (1939), then 6 months starting from turn 253 (1940/January), t.254 (1940/July) and so on.
Fission can be completed by 1910-12 and Rocketry 6 turns later. Radio 6 more turns. The Manhattan will require 8 turns.
We need 6 Tacs and 2 Subs to take G's cities and adequated SAM infantry. He can be wiped max in 1932.
Now we have 45 turns to 1920 (t.233) They must be played with great attention to MM and to spread the Corps as quickly as possible to all our cities. For this reason i'll set the TS from now on to 10 turns each.
The war will ask more RL time to prepare and to fight, with great attention to logistic, thus the pre-war and war TS will be furtherly reduced, i think 5 turns/TS.
A rough plan can foresight:
- 5 research TSs ending in 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1925 (we'll start build SAM here)
- 1 research / military and war TS, ending after the indian war, probably 1932 (t.245)
- then war, preparing or fighting: considering the best date at turn 270 we need some more 5 TSs.
Total 11 TS to the end. 3 days each and we'll be done early December.

Schedule2 turn 208 (1895), 11/07

Spoiler:

If we pop a GS from Rostov and if we shut-off research to spread Corps Fission can be completed in 1910 (15 turns, t.223) or even earlier.
Let's assume 15 more turns to research Rock/Radio and to build nukes, subs and troops. 1925, t. 238.
I wanna play 3-4 turns before the war starts to the end. Let's assume to start the war in 1926.
Now i'm up until i can start the MP, say 12-15 turns. UT arrives to 1920, then i'll take it again. After that key phase GB and Culdeus will be up for 5 turns each, then again UT and me for 5 turns each.
Too many mistakes i have to recover in my TS to let you play in the pre-war phase.
You demonstrated to not even read the strategy and to not even follow the basics in verifying cities and trade. The other teams are mindful over any hammer and coin in the game and you (GB and Culdeus) managed to even lost population in a city. Shame!

Schedule 3 turn 223 (1910), 11/07

Spoiler:

Fission will be in next turn, so the MP can start and be completed by 1919. In the meantime Rocketry can be researched, then Radio. The war can start in 1926-27. UT will play 'til 1920, then me until the war ends.

Schedule 4 revised turn 252, 11/17

Easy, this time:
we're only 5 TSs away to conquer the world.
4 days each and we'll be fine, winning and on time!

Graphs showing other teams

[BLubmuz]

1) never turn on any of the city automations. If this is necessary, inform the team.
2) never use automated workers.
3) never promote a unit right out of barracks: the first promotion will be given at the front. Naval and air units are promoted to C1.
of course if a city is under siege, CG1 will be given, or C1 if not an archer/GP
4) never give "go to" orders which can go over your last turn. Better: never give "go to" orders for multiple turns if possible.
5) Right before actually play, please check all the cities and the units in the field.
if a city grew on the saved turn, it's to next player assign tiles and specialists - or verify if those accomplishes the TS targets.
6) Sometimes is not possible to have a clear majority on a decision. In case of a tie, the team-leader decides and his decision is definitive.
7) 24/72 rule:
7a) the player who's "up" must submit a "got it" after max 24 hours from the posted save,
7b) then post a PPP in 24 h.
7c) play and submit within next 24 h.
This will be applied if there's no need to deeply discuss a TS.
In case a player can't play in that given time, it will be swapped with the one "on deck".
Better would be if he informs the team on his impossibility to play in the given time.

Fifth Element's Team Leader is Blubmuz!

Please also refer to

This thread (Viewing Threads)
and This other thread (Reference Thread)

[BLubmuz]

Oh well, another one is going to begin.
Welcome and welcome back to all.

I've prepared this, hope it can be useful

Spoiler:

As you will soon see, the new cities will start at size2, with Granary, Aqueduct and Forge. Lighthouse if coastal.
We’re actually still in Medieval Era, but any of the 5 techs we can directly research will bring us to the Renaissance.
Here the Emperor handicaps (from CIV4HandicapInfo.xml):

01.	<iUnitCostPercent>		80
02.	<iResearchPercent>		120
03.	<iDistanceMaintenancePercent>	95
04.	<iNumCitiesMaintenancePercent>	90
05.	<iHealthBonus>			2
06.	<iHappyBonus>			4
07.	<iAttitudeChange>		-1
08.	<iNoTechTradeModifier>		40
09.	<iAIDeclareWarProb>		100
10.	<iAIWorkRateModifier>		50
11.	<iAIGrowthPercent>		90
12.	<iAITrainPercent>		85
13.	<iAIConstructPercent>		85
14.	<iAICreatePercent>		85
15.	<iAICivicUpkeepPercent>		85
16.	<iAIUnitCostPercent>		85
17.	<iAIUnitSupplyPercent>		50
18.	<iAIUnitUpgradePercent>		50
19.	<iAIInflationPercent>		80
20.	<iAIWarWearinessPercent>	70

Not so big, as you can see. Only the Work Rate, Unit supply and Unit upgrades are big advantages.
The WW buildable are:
Sistine, Sankore, Angkor, Notre Dame, Spiral Minaret, Sh.Paya and Versailles.
Of course all the later and all the national wonders (but the Moai).
The only useful one I can see is Notre Dame (+2 happy in any city on Continent, stone doubles).
First GS will pop Edu, 2ndGS or GP or GM will pop PP. After it a GP will pop Liberalism.
Of course only part of them.

All the 7 religions are already founded, thus any team (we + 5 AIs) will found a religion in its 2nd city.
I don’t know how the 7th religion will spread.
This is a list of the immediate priorities for this SG.
• Liberalism race: very close, only Education has to be researched to win it. I think we must prioritize it over anything else, even if we’ll have a low profile tech, like Astro or Nationalism.
• Same for the Economics race: only Education has to be researched to win it.
• Another race is the one for the circumnavigation bonus. Being a sea-rich map, I think it’s important to win this.
• Nationalism, for the Taj Mahal driven Golden Age.

The second phase priorities are harder to define:
Surely win the Physics race is important, and get Astro from Lib can be a good advantage on this.

To start building nukes we need Fission, and probably avoid the path Gunpowder/Chemistry we can go pretty straight there.
Then we need to build the Manhattan, which doubles production with Uranium. Being a Project, it cannot be hurried. Once built, all the players will be able to build nukes, provided they have the techs and uranium. BTW, I hope we’ll have it.
To be accurate, they will not immediately be able to build nukes, ‘cause you need Rocketry to build them. The shortest path to it is artillery, but can be also Flight. A lot longer, but we’ll need also the techs in that path, more than artillery.

I propose this:
Everyone of us will post a plan with his ideas on how to better achieve our goal, which can be resumed in: let’s arrive ASAP to Fission with a good sized and decently defended empire.
The ideal will be to post those individual plans at the same time, so we can discuss our original ideas, not influenced by the other members ones.

Another idea to better verify our theories can be to meet on Skype or MSN to discuss in real time.
I've seen other teams do so, and they performed better than us in the last SGs (it wasn't the only reason, but...)

[BLubmuz]

Since it's long time we're playing those SGs, i'd like to remember the basic settings and the people playing in the Team.

Spoiler:

SG 01 - Vanilla 1.61 - 2006/05 to 2006/08 Win - 12th out of 19

Spoiler:

Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

Roster:
BrianS
Dolphan
Doom Train
Goodenuf
Groin_Apologist
gskur
Merum
Perugia

SG 02 - Vanilla 1.61 - 2006/08 to 2006/11 Win - 10th out of 22

Spoiler:

Playable Civ - Tokugawa of Japan
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, hand modified
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - YES!
Barbarians - Raging!!

Roster:
Perugia
BLubmuz
BrianS
Doom Train
Merum
Sweetacshon

SG 03 - Vanilla 1.61 - 2006/11 to 2007/03 Loss - Wooden Spoon for Warlords (the competition was also for Vanilla)

Spoiler:

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

Roster:
Blumbmuz
BrianS
Civicide
Doom Train
Merum
Sweetacshon

SG 04 - Warlords 2.08 - 2007/02 to 2007/07 Loss (loss was the condition, but we loss to the wrong AI)

Spoiler:

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

Roster:
Blubmuz
BrianS
Civicide
Doom Train
Merum
Sansman
Sweetacshon

SG 05 - Vanilla 1.74.SGOTM5 - 2007/07 to 2007/10 Win - 10th out of 15

Spoiler:

Playable Leader/Civ - Temujin of Mongolia
Rivals - 7: China, Japan, India, Arabia, Spain, Persia and Greece
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Special, sort of a fractal archipelago
Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Normal
Barbarians - Raging, and teamed with the Mongols
Permanent Alliances - Not Enabled
City Razing - Enabled

Roster:
BrianS
Blubmuz
Civicide
Culdeus
Conroe
Dutchfire
Merum
The Sansman
Sweetacshon

SG 06 - Warlords 2.13 - 2007/12 to 2008/04 Win - 10th out of 15

Spoiler:

Prince difficulty
Epic speed
You play as the Charismatic, Protective Churchill of the English Empire.
You start with Fishing and Mining.
Your unique unit is the Redcoat, replacing the Rifleman.
Your Unique building is the Stock Exchange, replacing the Bank.
The map is a highly modified Cylindrical Big And Small map, using the BtS map script. It is Standard, Temperate, Medium sea level.
Always war. All VCs are enabled. I think the barbs are at default setting.

Roster:
Blubmuz
Civicide
Greatbeyond
Merum
Sweetacshon

SG 07 - Vanilla 1.74.002 - 2008/04 to 2008/09 Win - 10th out of 12

Spoiler:

Playable Leader/Civ - Qin Shi Huang of China.
Characteristics - Industrious and Financial, starts with Agriculture and Mining
Unique Unit - Cho-Ku-Nu (Crossbowman)
Rivals - All of them
World size - Tiny
Difficulty - Deity
Landform - Continents
Environment - Temperate climate, low sea level
Game Speed - Normal
AI Aggression - Normal
Barbarians - Normal
Permanent Alliances - Enabled
City Razing - Enabled. China auto-razes to enforce OCC.

Roster:
Balthalion
Blubmuz
culdeus
dutchfire
greatbeyond
Merum
WastinTime
Sweetacshon

SG 08 - BtS 3.17.001 - 2008/09 to 2009/01 Win - 7th out of 14

Spoiler:

Playable Leader/Civ - Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire.
Characteristics - Expansive and Creative, starts with Hunting and Mining
Unique Unit - Ballista Elephant (War elephant)
Unique Building - Baray (Aqueduct)
Rivals - 7 AI civs
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Big and Small
Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
Game Speed - Normal
Everything else - Default Notes - Wonders Crazy

Roster:
Balthalion
berserks01
Blubmuz
greatbeyond
Mesix
Sweetacshon
WastinTime

SG 09 - BtS 3.17.001 - 2009/03 to 2009/07 Win - 8th out of 15

Spoiler:

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

Roster:
Berserks01
Blubmuz
Greatbeyond
Mesix
Simon_c
Sweetacshon
Unclethrill

SG 10 - BtS 3.19.001 - 2009/08 in progress

Spoiler:

Roster:
Blubmuz (Italy) UTC +1 / old - SG2
Culdeus (Texas) UTC -6 / old - SG5, but skipped last SG
Greatbeyond (somewhere in the US East Coast) UTC -5 / old - SG6
Mesix (Germany, but he's American) UTC +1 / he joined SG8
SunTzuWu (Central USA) UTC -6 / New, a great addition
Sweetacshon (Australia) UTC +9 / old - SG2 (but he said that maybe he can't be of much help for this one)
Unclethrill (Germany, but he's American) UTC +1 / he joined SG9

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by BLubmuz

The new cities will start at size2, with Granary, Aqueduct and Forge. Lighthouse if coastal.

These are small, but very potent Cities. I suggest we produce as many of them as possible to maximize Growth, Production and Commerce. We really only need Production and Commerce, but the fastest way there is monumental Growth.

Land Grab:

0) Since we can't capture Cities before we bomb them with an ICBM, the initial Land Grab will be our major means of expansion until we have Fission and ICBMs. We must make the most of it.

1) Quickly reveal all Land between ourselves and all neighboring AIs.

2) Start a "ring" (the shape is determined by current Cultural Boundaries of neighboring AI) of Cities between 3-5 Tiles from the closest AI Cities. The Ring Cities must be 3-5 Tiles apart. This will make it impossible for an AI to squeeze in a City of his own between his Ring and our Ring.

3) The ring's center can be filled in at a slower pace.

4) In case of Ocean, use Galleys as far as possible. Research Astronomy to build Galleons to go further out.

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Technologies that can be researched are:
Astronomy
Gunpowder
Nationalism
Printing Press
Education

I like BLubmuz's idea of doing Education -> Liberalism to get free Astronomy.

Civics (it's important to adopt important civics as early as reasonably efficient to do so):
Government: Despotism, Hereditary Rule
.........Legal: Barbarism, Vassalage, Bureaucracy
.........Labor: Tribalism, Slavery, Serfdom, Caste System
....Economy: Decentralization, Mercantilism
......Religion: Paganism, Organized Religion, Theocracy, Pacifism

Two civics can be adopted for 1t Anarchy. I'd suggest Bureaucracy and Mercantilism immediately. Hereditary Rule won't help much, unless a Renaissance Military is built. Slavery won't be much help with Growth. Organized Religion may be a good option. Other Civics may be better adopted later like Caste System for running Scientists.

Bureaucracy will be a good boost to Commerce and whatever the Capital builds. With Mercantilism, one could have a "free" Engineer in each City or Scientist with a Library or CS.

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Which Military unit to build up while researching to Fission? The Cossack needs many Technologies beyond the starting Technologies. I was hoping for Tanks, but that seems out of the question; just too many Technologies to research/bulb.

[Edit] Forgot to consider that building ICBMs requires Rocketry, which means the research path to either Flight or Artillery must be taken first. Artillery would be the cheaper path with Replaceable Parts starting a diversion of Steam Power -> Assembly Line (Factory) -> Industrialism (Tank), so there may be Tanks in the end-game after all. [End Edit]

Depending on much Great Scientist bulbing we can do to get to Fission ASAP, Grenadiers and Canons seem like good units to build up and require Gunpowder -> Chemistry -> Military Science and Gunpowder -> Chemistry -> Steel respectively. Grenadiers, Canons and ICBMs; I must be out of my mind; someone please tell me where I've gone wrong to think such a thing. I would target Steel first, its better to have Musketmen and Canons than Grenadiers and Trebuchets? What AI units would we be facing when we complete Fission?

[Edit] We should be using all sorts of early Military units for pillaging AI Lands and reducing each AI City's defense to a single defender and keeping it there. Much more important than pillaging would be AI Settler killing stacks! Kill Settlers before they create Cities; No ICBMs needed to kill Settlers! [End Edit]

It seems that some test games may need to be played to answer these mid-game and end-game questions? Is someone interested in doing this? Sorry, I don't have the time ... or even BtS 3.19 yet ...

[Edit] By test games, I simply mean play a single user game with the same game parameters as SGOTM-10. I would not suggest trying to attempt to recreate the starting position of SGOTM-10 via World Builder. These "tests" would help flesh out a strategy and answer questions like which Technologies can be reasonably bulbed, is a bee-line to Fission followed by a bee-line to Rocketry best, which military units should be built in the various stages of the game, etc. [End Edit]

Sun Tzu Wu

[Mesix]

I signed up in the main thread for another round of SGOTM. I will be out of the country with no Internet access from 9-18 Aug, but will contribute when I get back.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

I like BLubmuz's idea of doing Education -> Liberalism to get free Astronomy.

There's also another option, but i reserve it for later, once we have more ideas around.

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

Civics (it's important to adopt important civics as early as reasonably efficient to do so): The max efficiency is to adopt civics before to settle the first city. This way the Anarchy is not a problem

Two civics can be adopted for 1t Anarchy. I'd suggest Bureaucracy and Mercantilism immediately. Of course, and 1 turn is gone.
But if we want to pop a GS early, we can't wait to build a library, so Caste is not an option. Then we have another civic change for free. I agree thatHereditary Rule won't help much, unless a Renaissance Military is built. But coming for free we can consider it. Or we can consider Pacifism, even if i'm inclined to not adopt a religion it's a no upkeep civic.

SunTzu, I suppose you agree on this way to communicate.

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by BLubmuz

SunTzu, I suppose you agree on this way to communicate.

I suppose you mean via this thread. Yes, I agree.

Who can read this thread, other than Fifth Element team members?

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

We start with 1 Worker. We will need many more. A Forest Chop should be 44/45 Hammers with Mathematics. It should take 5t to complete one Forest Chop at Epic speed.

It is probably best for the Worker to improve a Food resource to begin with. After that it may be desirable to have the Worker chop Settlers or other Workers.

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

BLubmuz, you are right about Caste System. We need it to pop an early Great Scientist. Mercantilism is synergistic with this goal; a free Scientist in each City. We will also want Pacifism to double GPP/turn when a Religion is founded/spread.

I agree that if we don't built our Capital in turn 0, we definitely should adopt Civics in turn 0. That way, at least one turn of Anarchy will have no effect on game development, since at least one turn is lost moving the Settler anyway.

I guess this means we want Caste System and Mercantilism immediately. Maybe also Bureaucracy and Pacifism (although we won't have a Religion until turn 6?), but they cost a second turn of Anarchy. Bureaucracy may be worth to help build more Settlers and generate more Beakers.

------

Note what Gyathaar had to say in the SGOTM-10 Maintenance Thread:

Originally Posted by Gyathaar

I would just like to mention that I have taken some steps to reduce the differences between the teams due to religions in late era start...

Eliminate the seventh Religion, so there is just one Religion per Player/AI?

Sun Tzu Wu

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

I suppose you mean via this thread. Yes, I agree.
No, i meant inserting comments in different colors

Who can read this thread, other than Fifth Element team members?

Sun Tzu Wu

Officially only the Staff members and anyone is not part of another Team. The Staff can see if you open another thread.

There 2 ways to spoil this rule:
1) Click on the avatar of another team member, so you will open his profile. Then click on the "show all statistics" and you can see the first 2 rows of any post he made.
This can't be detected. And even if it would be it's not an infraction (already discussed this with Staff)
2) simpler: visit any thread using another IP address, like a friend or a neighbour.
You aren't logged, the IP is different, no way to be discovered.

There's another way to cheat harder: run the actual game in another computer you'll never use for this SG. I suspect some team do this, but, again nobody can do nothing to avoid it.

[culdeus]

Some comments

All the 7 religions are already founded, thus any team (we + 5 AIs) will found a religion in its 2nd city.
I don’t know how the 7th religion will spread. It seems to be random we will have a 1 in 7 chance of getting two religions it seems.
This is a list of the immediate priorities for this SG.
• Liberalism race: very close, only Education has to be researched to win it. I think we must prioritize it over anything else, even if we’ll have a low profile tech, like Astro or Nationalism. This is what I've been looking into very hard. I have some comments already.
• Same for the Economics race: only Education has to be researched to win it.
• Another race is the one for the circumnavigation bonus. Being a sea-rich map, I think it’s important to win this. This is not possible, and not that big a deal. Not that much sea on this map. It's really no big deal if we are on big. The AI gets this super fast because it seems as if the small AI trades maps with the big as soon as they get contact and then spin around the other way and it's over.
• Nationalism, for the Taj Mahal driven Golden Age. Yes yes. AI seems more wonder happy to start.

The second phase priorities are harder to define:
Surely win the Physics race is important, and get Astro from Lib can be a good advantage on this.

To start building nukes we need Fission, and probably avoid the path Gunpowder/Chemistry we can go pretty straight there.
Then we need to build the Manhattan, which doubles production with Uranium. Being a Project, it cannot be hurried. Once built, all the players will be able to build nukes, provided they have the techs and uranium. BTW, I hope we’ll have it.
To be accurate, they will not immediately be able to build nukes, ‘cause you need Rocketry to build them. The shortest path to it is artillery, but can be also Flight. A lot longer, but we’ll need also the techs in that path, more than artillery.

[culdeus]

As to lib.

A GS from Caste+Merch will get 85% of the beakers needed for edu. If there is a practical way to bring a GP online to help out with liberalism in a timely manner I haven't found one.

I have been settling city 2 to the bottom left as a GP farm from the get go. Two seafood + 2FP and lots of grass makes this superb.

I have tended to settle the capital 2E, but I think this will change with scouting. 2E is fine and gets both gold and iron in the FC, but isn't sea based. It may need to be 1E of the corn.

I've tended to start the elephant city with a worker workboat start and send the worker we have to farm the corn and then the second worker to farm the grassland tile under the river to chain the rice and corn to the E while 1st worker mines gold. Both cities get early library and elephant gets national epic and makes workers while capital pumps settlers. Elephant hits size 8 fast and can run lots of GP.

I used to think that serfdom would make more sense as we have no improvements, but this is not the case as lib is quick by the AI.

The other thing is the AI constantly pesters you to swap civics. It is quite annoying. Though they do not seem to make many DOW.

[culdeus]

I said this in the 9 thread, but my guess is that we are 75% for sure on the "small" part of the map. Long term for this scenario it will make things much easier.

It will take perhaps some 50-60 nukes to win if we are on big. 35-45 on small. This is assuming intercept rate is high if we can not beat out the AI to the point where they could intercept if they were so inclined.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by culdeus

Some comments

All the 7 religions are already founded, thus any team (we + 5 AIs) will found a religion in its 2nd city.
I don’t know how the 7th religion will spread. It seems to be random we will have a 1 in 7 chance of getting two religions it seems.

As you can see in the Maintenance thread, the 7th religion will be prefounded in a barb city.
This is a list of the immediate priorities for this SG.
• Another race is the one for the circumnavigation bonus. Being a sea-rich map, I think it’s important to win this. This is not possible, and not that big a deal. Not that much sea on this map. It's really no big deal if we are on big. The AI gets this super fast because it seems as if the small AI trades maps with the big as soon as they get contact and then spin around the other way and it's over.

In my test i settled city 2 in the hill where both settlers start and the Capital 1E of corn. I put the worker on chop the hill where he starts before to found the city. Chosen this as GP farm, run Sci there and Eng in Capital. Build queue: Caravel, WB x3, workers, settlers. I managed to build a caravel in 5 turns, but in my test i circumnavigated with the explorer and trading maps. The caravel can be useful, since not all the AI have a coastal city, maybe. So you can trade the WM pretty safely. Few water or not, 1 movement for ships is always a good advantage.

Can you please post a screenie of your starting empire? It's not completely clear to me how you settle.
BTW i have not used yet your save, i'm testing with one i made myself.

@SunTzuWu
In which Time Zone are you?
We are:
me (Italy), Mesix and Unclethrill (Germany, but they're both Americans) GMT+1
Sweeta (Australia) GMT +9, IIRC
Culdeus is in Texas, so GMT -6
Greatbeyond somewhere in the US East Coast (sorry mate, i forgot) GMT -5?

[culdeus]

I'm in Dallas, TX.