AG12 - Space Race (Sid)

AG8 -my first Sid SG- ended with a win. I now want to try out a Space Race on Sid.

The type of map and preferred civ are all up for discussion. I am thinking about:
-standard sized map, wet/warm 70% land, archipelago (archipelago sounds like the best shot to have a decent portion of land at the start AND it allows trade options at the very start with seafaring).
-England, Spain, Carthage (seafaring with a good 2nd trait, agricultural and scientific might not be that strong at an archipelago Sid map)

OR:

-standard sized map, wet/warm, 70% land, continent
-Maya, Celts, Dutch.

VARIANT RULES, ETC...
-Space Race is the only victory type that counts as a win, but all standard victory types are enabled.
-Sid level
-C3C 1.22

BANNED TACTICS
These are the exploits that I want to avoid in the game:

"Phony Peace Treaty": Making Peace Treaties without having the intention to stay at peace, just to get cheap techs or money.

"Palace Jump"; Jumping the palace by disbanding the capital. Rushing a palace or building it brick by brick is OK.

"RoP Rape": Using Right of Passage to move whole armies into attack position.

"Throwaway Cities": It is possible to go everywhere by settling, moving a setter one tile further in, abandoning the old city, founding a new one, etc...etc... A city shouldn't be abandoned in the same turn as it is settled.

"Resource Piracy": Sitting on resources or deny a civ access to a tile inside the borders of the rival while at peace.

"Seed Corn": It is not allowed to buy the LAST TWO workers from the AI before 1000 BC.

"Negative cash research": The penalty of negative cash is only one unit/improvement. So there are cases where this can be worthwile. Science spending must be lowered when the cash would go below zero.

I got rid of the dogpile exploit.

OTHERS:
Things that I didn't name but are in the spirit of what I mention above I would like to have discussed.

ROSTER
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom
open

There are 2 more open spots. People who join should either have beaten Sid or difficult Deity variants. This isn't going to be a walk in the park.

24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 48hrs after that to finish and post your turns. I will start with 25 turns. Next up can take 15/20 turns, and the next leader 10/15, then 10 each turn after that.

Checking in. I was thinking of a huge, pangeae with scientific, commercial. That map size would make it tough and the traits are ideal for a space race.

We know Sid can be beaten, but nothing like beating it at the hardest map combination in one of the harder ways to win the game (space IMO is always harder than conquest).

Hmm. Looks tasty but I will have to watch on this as I am over committed already.

Why is Space harder than Conquest? If you can beat all the other civs then it is very easy to just leave 1 AI city each and sail to the spaceship.

anarres said:

Why is Space harder than Conquest? If you can beat all the other civs then it is very easy to just leave 1 AI city each and sail to the spaceship.

Click to expand...

yes, but I do not think of that as space. That is essentially conquest. Ideally when I think of a space game I think a game where you go to war for a resource or a lux etc. and not with the intent of wiping out all AI civs.

of course this is a personal preference. It is not more or less logical than your viewpoint. Just different.

The reason I said it was harder this way is because if you let AI civs survive; then the strategy of the game gets focussed into making spaceship parts and excelling in science which is immaterial in a military victory to a large extent.

The way I see it, if you are not going to have competition in science and building SS parts then why play for a space victory?

I'll be lurking .

Is it ok if I play in all your new games Aggie?

Reading between the lines, it sounds like Betazed is advocating a Quasi-Passive game (only fight when needed) as compared to a Quasi-Conquest/Domination game (destroy your opponent sufficiently to win the victory condition of your choice).

It might be worth deciding if we are aiming for one of the other above or some shade of gray between so we are all working together toward the same goal. If one player builds barracks for troops and the next player builds temples and libraries rather than troops, we will end up wasting resources.

We probably cannot know for sure what the game will be as I feel one should adjust to the position one finds oneself in; we can discuss this if it comes up.

Greebley, you're always welcome I like to try a Quassi-Passive approach (only fighting when needed). But you're entirely correct that we have to react on the position we will be in. We must make sure to get a decent core for instance.

I would like it very much if we have a same sort of discussion in between turns as in AG8. That worked out perfectly.

Regarding the traits:
I really think that scientific isn't the way to go. I can't imagine that we would actually profit from free techs and we won't be building any scientific improvements until much later.

Regarding map shape:
Sid is hard enough as it is and I don't want to make it even harder by choosing the most difficult landmass. That's why I like archipelago most and continents as a close 2nd.

I was just posting my personal opinion in what I think a space race game should be like. Of couse I am willing to play whatever the majority decides.

But I am glad Aggie too is thinking about the Quasi-Passive approach.

If we are going to play space in Archi then I guess I vote Aggie's choice of English. Commercial with seafaring looks good to me for this variant.

I would also prefer the quasi-passive approach otherwise the space restriction is meaningless. I think Sid Pangea would be an interesting additional challenge.

I think we are in agreement then, as I think quasi-passive is better for spaceship.

I think I prefer all random over pangea I think

Hmmm. I'm the only one afraid of being overrun in the first 50 turns? Greebley, do you mean random map AND civ? Sounds kinda brutal

Aggie said:

Hmmm. I'm the only one afraid of being overrun in the first 50 turns?

Click to expand...

If we lose we lose. Nobody is keeping score here. And if we lose we can always try attempt 2 and be spectacularly successful like AG7.

Greebley, do you mean random map AND civ? Sounds kinda brutal

Click to expand...

Very brutal to say the least.

What is the worst that could happen, we lose. It seems to me that the majority of these SGs are won. In my opinion the ideal would be about 50% wins. The most exciting game is one where you're always on the brink of disaster and need some gambit that you're unsure will succeed to pull the game out. I'd love to see a space race that goes to the wire with tech stealing, sabotage, and modern age wars. All random also sounds good to me but I would prefer standard size map simply to keep playtime more reasonable.

OK! I will generate a map at random, but with the following fixed:
-standard size
-no barbarians
-wet planet (edit)
-decent to good start
-civ with at least DECENT traits

Meanwhile I patiently wait for a 5th player before I start

Out of curiosity why wet/warm? Doesn't that just mean that there will be lots of jungle? If we start in all tundra just try again...

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The only trait that is not decent is expansionist???

The rest all offer their own advantages.

OK, I deleted 'warm' and only left wet. Expansionist is really the one I rather not like to have indeed.

Aggie, I think warm, wet and age are either all random or not random at all.

You could just specify that there is some fresh water nearby. Having none is fairly rare and would become obvious during the first 20. If you get it then abandon and try again.

I would be curious on how many rerolls we do end up taking

I created the following map.



Five rerolls... 4 other attempts gave us either expansionist or jungle or space for 3 cities due to AI expansion. I took the first save where I got the idea that we could settle at least 4 cities I suggest to have someone else start the game, since I played 30 fast turns to see how it would go.

We are Persia and have one BG, a lot of plains, a river, a gold hill and a wheat on plains. How shall we continue? Worker to the north, probably settle on the spot if nothing nice is revealed? Pottery at min science? Or Iron Working (We have BW naturally)?

I'm still waiting for the 5th player. I think that a team of 4 to start with is too small.

EDIT: What about this roster? Meaning that Greebley will start.

ROSTER
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
open
open

I also included the 4000BC save

Roster seems fine.

Should I wait for the fifth before taking it?

Greebley, you can play it if you want. People that are interested may be persuaded to play if they see the starting turns. But I like to discuss to first steps before you play. I like to stick to the succesful AG8 style