SGOTM3 Rome - Team Bugsy

[mad-bax]

SGOTM3 Rome - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

Here is the start position.


Here are a couple of links you might find useful.

The Original GOTM16 Announcement.
The Draft Constitution

This Months' sponsored variant is Xenophobic NOW
The rules are as follows.
1. Non-Oscillating War variant. You keep a list of opponents and the order in which you meet them.
2. You must declare war on the first Civ you meet before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time.
3. You must stay at war with that Civ until one of you have been eliminated.
4. You must declare war on the second Civ you met on the same turn that the first Civ was eliminated or 20 turns has elapsed (whichever happens sooner). This is to prevent sandbagging.
5. After each opponent is eliminated or 20 turns elapse you must declare war on the next civ in the list.
6. If you run out of opponents because you haven't met them yet and 20 turns have elapsed, you must declare war on the next opponent you meet before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time with them

The Xenophobic part of the variant runs as follows.
7. You may never own a foreign worker. You must never buy or sell one, and if you capture them they must be disbanded on the tile on which they were captured.
8. All deals must be at face value. No haggling.
9. You will not establish embassies.
10. You will never retain a town that contains foreign citizens. Such towns must be razed and any workers spawned disbanded.

Also there is a puzzle involving some non-standard Barbarian Units. The puzzle is framed in the same way as it was for the original GOTM16, but the solution is different.

The save will be available from >>HERE<< when the timelock is released. All of your teams save files will eventually be available from this link.

When you finish your turn, you may upload your save to >>THIS<< link

Have fun, and good luck everyone!

[Sir Bugsy]

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750 BC - war in 2750 BC
2) England - 2270 BC - war in 1950 BC
3) France - 2230 BC - war in 1375 BC
4) Russia - 2150 BC - declared war on us in 1050 BC (normally would have declared in 875 BC)
5) America - 2110 BC - declare in 450 BC
6) Babylon - 1550 BC - declare in 50 BC
7) Germany – 1500 BC - declared on us via MA in 775BC
8) ?????? - ????? - declare in 500 AD

[Bede]

Checking in.

Let's reprise GK1, Sir Bugs.

Denyd, G-man, R&L, looking forward to playing with youse guys.

Good to see you again, alerum. Ready for an alley fight?

[Sir Bugsy]

GK1 was fun, but now we don't have the 5CC limit, just the Xenophobic one.

For those that don't know, we need to treat the early turns as if we're in AW. Because we will be with the first civ we meet.

Edit - Since we will be at war almost immediately, I think that hill our settler is standing on might be a nice place the throw stones down on our enemies from.

[denyd]

Checking in

A couple of items for discussion:

1. Is there any reason to move the settler? (none that I see)
2. Worker to Western BG to mine & road?
3. Research order: writing, bronze working or pottery? (look to trade for 2/3)
4. Try for Great Library to ease research needs?
5. First build is barracks, then vet archers until size 3, then settler.
6. Limited exploration and do not initiate contact if AI unit spotted

I assume we are playing the variant. If not, then these plans are wacko

[Sir Bugsy]

Yes, we're playing the variant.

Agree with 1 & 2, 5 & 6.

Do we want to go for the library, or would BW=>IW be better for us? Remember we can always trade with civs 2, 3 & 4 that we meet. We can also make one initial, no haggling trade with civ #1. After we make the initial contact we need to explore like crazy to lower our research costs.

I would explore in a circle just enough to find a location for city #2.

I'm assuming a tight build?

[Bede]

Originally Posted by denyd

Checking in

A couple of items for discussion:

1. Is there any reason to move the settler? (none that I see)
2. Worker to Western BG to mine & road?
3. Research order: writing, bronze working or pottery? (look to trade for 2/3)
4. Try for Great Library to ease research needs?
5. First build is barracks, then vet archers until size 3, then settler.
6. Limited exploration and do not initiate contact if AI unit spotted

I assume we are playing the variant. If not, then these plans are wacko

Concur on all, on #3, head straight for writing, as I think we can trade for the others. And archers are good until we learn how to work iron.

[Sir Bugsy]

I suppose with the no haggling rule, the GL will be very valuable. OK, I see the point. Writing on a beeline to literature it is.

Where should we plan on building the GL? Rome is probably going to be a military factory for a long time. Although we'll get some serious shields out of it with 5 BG and all those hills. Probably try and set up city #2 with some strong shield production.

[grahamiam]

checking in welcome to bede and alerum! hope you brought your fightin' shoes i will be unable to play on the 16th - 17th due to visitors coming for a

[alerum68]

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750BC
2) England 2270BC
3) France - 2230BC

First post edited and moved to my second post to make this list easier to see.

[grahamiam]

sorry, forgot to add that i will be away on business from the 19th thru the 23rd as well. i will probably have a laptop and civ but connection may be spotty. especially on the 19th and 20th as i'll be in vancouver, b.c. and i'm not sure how well our company's isp covers that area.

#1 (from denyd) we'll be able to do +4fpt max at the present location which should be good enough with a granery to do a settler and 2 warriors every 5-6T once we get to size 5. the wine on the hill will act like a bg till we're out of despotism and there are 5bg's available immediately so no need to work it more than roading. we can add the mine later when we have more workers.

#2 ok

#3 beeling for lit is a good long range plan but I would like to trade for techs when we can as horsemen will be really useful in this varient

#4 yep

#5 & 6: as far as contacts go, we should plan carefully since we will have to declare on the 1st person we meet. imho, we should build a few of warriors 1st in case someone strolls by and says hi. 2nd city should be a shield powerhouse dedicated to units, at least till the 3rd and 4th are online, then, being developed, it could switch to a great library prebuild.

[RowAndLive]

@Bede - I've admired your play through lurking in other threads, and of course admired your team of advisors as well. "youse guys"?!? How does an Irish monk living on the cape get a Brooklyn accent?

@Alerum - Hail and well met! We who are about to die with you (supposedly), salute you! I haven't encountered you before, but am looking forward to getting to know you in this adventure. Thank you for your kind comment, and welcome to Team Bugsy!

As for the suggestions, I agree with Denyd's 1,2,5,6, and although inclined to pursue IW ASAP, can see the logic behind doing writing first, and so will agree to that. An archer / horse rush will certainly arrive first. Certainly as you can bet that there will be no iron within 20 tiles, and we're surrounded by (choose one: jungle, mountains, desert, tundra). I see from G's comments, that his passion for equine troops is rising to the fore. Maybe we'll be allowed to have horses (should the greater demi-god M-B look upon us favorably... ). I also see no issues with the suggested rules of (avoided) engagement.

As far as initial builds go, I'm more inclined to follow Denyd's lead, and go for archers over warriors. We'd get a few more warriors, but given the variant, I think archers are preferable, and more flexible. Also, we won't need the extra units for exploring. I didn't catch a given victory condition. Is Dom acceptable, or is this Conquest?

[alerum68]

Originally Posted by alerum68 - From his first post

Checking in! I had a great argument for our team taking on the variant, but as the team already aggrees with me, I'll keep my mouth shut on that point.
Bugsy, Bede, good to see you two gentleman again. Always an honor to be in the same game with you, even if you do make me feel like a noob sometimes.

Denyd, before I answer your question just want to say it's going ot be fun being on your team after all the delurks over in GK:TDG.

R&L, Grahm, I haven't played with either of you, but I've lurked games both of you have played, and know you're both solid.

With this team, I have a feeling that *I* am the handicap player. Oh well, will be a learning experence for me.

1. God no! Wines, AND game, on a hill?! Perfect AW opening location IMHO.

2. yep. Game next.

3.
Writing if we're going to do #4. We'll need to beeline for Lit, but most AW games I've seen either rise or fall based on having The Great Library.

4. Going for GL will allow us to focus on nothing but luxury and military. If we're in Monarchy, we should be able to destroy them easily with the GL...


5. Alpha and Warrior Code... humm... seems like a good idea, but we may want to trade for Pottery, if an AI that's close has it. Maybe 'rax, archer, archer, temple for a granary prebuild?

6. Aggreed about limited exploration... nothing beyond our first ring of cities... maybe 2 squares out, and go in a circle until we reach our starting point again. We won't need anything beyond 3 squares until we build our inner ring... and keep it to 3-squares on all cities... this will allow for quick movement...

Wish I could see our location on the minimap... I'd hate to go north and have it tundra... Bugsy, you may want to keep a running total of who we met, and when in the first post... will help for the NOW.
Hope I didn't crosspost with anyone.

Conquest! Conquest! Domination drives me crazy.... "are we there yet? Are we there yet?" On conquest you see that last city and you KNOW.

Edited:
Guys, one thing that KILLED us on our last game was the fact that the team had a general idea that we wanted a domination win, and that was about it. We need to plan this out better before we start playing. Are we going for Domination or Conquest... I have a feeling that rest of the team will feel as I do, and we're going for conquest...

Now, are we planning on beelining toward Knights, cutting off research at that point, and just using our Knights to wipe out everyone? Or are we going to just try to stay alive, wiping out cities as we go along?

I wouldn't mind a golden laurel, but just finishing this game will be a challenge... this is very hard variant that is going to require us to keep our capitol on making settlers just to replace the cities we have to raze and rebuild. If we stay in Depsotism until we got Feudlism, would we be able to whip those foreign citizens away, or would the varient rules forbid that? I'm not quite sure on that... of course, it matters on if Resitors are considers native, foriegn, or in a limbo where neither count... Any thoughts on this one? If we can't whip like that, then getting monarch is a priority, and we'll need to keep our capitol on a constant settler pump to replace razed cities.

I hope I don't sound like a moron stating the obvious I just want to make sure the team is not just on the same page, but we're all reading the same paragraph... before we start this off, we need to come up with a basic strategy for this game...

[Sir Bugsy]

Doc has a great article over on RBCiv I thik everyone should read. It just changed my mind on several items. It is HERE I think it could be a great strategy for us.

@ Alerum - I will try to not make you feel like a Noob.

With G-man heading out let's swap G & bede. New roster:

Denyd
G-man
Alerum
Bede
R & L
Bugs

BTW - I'll be off line for most of tomorrow.

I wouldn't worry about where we're at right yet. We don't want to explore much until we have at least two archers.

This is becoming like old home week.

[alerum68]

very good article... I really want to try the trick with an army and explorers... 9 explorers with the army.... that's massive attack... clear a "city-sized" swath, then move one and no one is left exposed, but yet 10 tiles are pillaged. The AI won't attack a strong defensive army... wonder if it would work the same with a sword or a spear army?

hopefully we'll have a chokepoint close to us, but we won't find it until it's of no use I think. Does anyone know the world size?

Are we planning on taking this game into the Rifle Age?? I doubt it will go into the IA, but we can drag it out if it's needed.
Bugsy, you haven't been in an AW game in a while... it seems to me, that you used to play nothing but... or am I mistaken?

[Bede]

A little background:
I first met Bugs in GK1, NOWM with 5CC added as spice, and conquest as the only possible victory condition. Let me tell you by the time we rolled over the last of the opponents, starting with archers and spears and ending with Modern Armor, the possibility of a domination victory looked pretty tempting, like a mirage in the distance.

Keep in mind that this will use the Jason scoring system, so a maximised score depends on territory and smiling faces, yet the variant rules do not allow the keeping of towns with any foreign citizens so the battle order is raze and replace, a perfect opportunity to use the "combat settler" and "combat worker". The scoring system also rewards speed, so I think our best approach is kill 'em all and fill in behind.

Having also read Doc's article over on RBCiv I commend it to your attention.

@R&L,
the accent comes from the same place as the advisors: doesn't every Irish celibate have an Italian uncle in Brooklyn with six beautiful daughters?

[grahamiam]

Originally Posted by Sir Bugsy

I wouldn't worry about where we're at right yet. We don't want to explore much until we have at least two archers.

i agree, but don't underestimate the warrior. we can get 4 for the price of 2 archers in the very beginning, giving us some early exploration for our immediate city sites and providing MP duty in our 1st few cities. they also upgrade to swords later.

i agree archers will be important in this one and we should build many, but 1st things 1st, secure our base and locate new city locations. i'm not suggesting a large amount of warriors, maybe 4 or 5 and then other units. that all changes of course if we find iron on our lands. in that case, we will do the mighty warrior -> swordsman mass upgrade.

the article is good and delivers some interesting observations regarding diety games that are on the money. it'll be interesting to see if it applies here but i tend to stay away from pillaging unless i am taking on a far superior opponent. if you pillage too much, it just slows down your war progress by taking away roads.

[RowAndLive]

Originally Posted by grahamiam

that all changes of course if we find iron on our lands. in that case, we will do the mighty warrior -> swordsman mass upgrade.

Grahamiam, we're ROME... Of course M-B isn't going to leave a whole lot of iron lying around... Then again, maybe we ALL have a lot of iron, and our closest opponents are the Celts, Persians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Iroquois and Zulu.

I haven't read the article yet, but will soon.

I was imagining that we would make the victory a conquest. It's just that I didn't see it in M-B's posts, and wanted to clarify. Of course, a dom win would require a lot of settlers in addition to units, but I'm thinking in order to max the score, we need to do that anyway.

From a look at the roster page, Team Microbe certainly looks strong. It's also interesting that I don't see GK on any of the teams. This seems right up his alley.

[grahamiam]

Originally Posted by RowAndLive

Grahamiam, we're ROME... Of course M-B isn't going to leave a whole lot of iron lying around...

right! an even more powerful upgrade hopefully we can capture iron early enough to make them useful (after we revolt to Monarchy, that is).

[alerum68]

Originally Posted by RowAndLive

From a look at the roster page, Team Microbe certainly looks strong. It's also interesting that I don't see GK on any of the teams. This seems right up his alley.

I think team Microbe picked their own team.

GK has had a bad patch lately... I haven't seen him even post in his training game in about 2 weeks. Did he Graduate from Uni, or did he just finish up a year? If he graduated, we may see a LOT less of him.

Edit: The save has been posted! The save has been posted! Here's the link!!