SGOTM3 Rome - Team microbe

[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!

[scoutsout]

Just a quick check to let you guys know I'm tracking, and really looking forward to this one.

[TedJackson]

Signing in...

Sword sharpened... check
Armour polished... check
Clean underpants... check

Well, I'm ready


Ted

[gozpel]

Checking in

[barbslinger]

Ready to rumble!

[barbslinger]

Anyone like the idea of an early archer rush to knock out the first civ we meet. If we can get iron hooked up early we can take on 2 civs, if we haven't finished off Civ 1 yet, after the 20 turn sandbagging time elapses. Once we have legions rolling we should roll our continent and then fully settle our land mass. The wars after that will be limited to AI landings. If we can get our continent early and pump settlers our score, shield output and tech pace should be large enough to overcome any obstacles the AI may throw at us. Hoping to finish the world off by knights/ early cav period.

[scoutsout]

@'slinger: sounds like a plan to me...hammer 'em early and often...

Since the gold goes to the fastest date relative to Jason, are we going after domination/conquest? Nobody's up for stealing techs in communism in a space race?

[TedJackson]

Conquest/domination sounds good to me too. As soon as we have Iron then let the Legions loose on an unsuspecting world.

Anyone seen or heard from microbe?


Ted

[scoutsout]

I don't think Microbe and I are in any SGs together, so I wouldn't know if he's around or not.

On Barbslinger's early archer rush idea... a couple of questions:

1) Just how dangerous would an early archer rush be at Emperor?
2) Would it be worth breaking out the whip after we've got a few cities down?

I hope we've got an expansionist civ nearby. I've always been so tempted to just clip an AI's scout...

Edit: The starting position looks strong enough to me. A nice defensive hill, river, 5 BGs, game, wine... Worker west, and (seeing nothing) settle on the spot? Mine/road BG, then south to mine/road BG, and prepare to do a forest chop to dump shields into something worthwhile?

[microbe]

All right. What should the roster be? A tentative list:

TedJackson (play up to 3000BC) - retired
Barbslinger (10 onwards)
ForTheEmpire (newly joined)
microbe
gozpel
scout

I'd prefer someone with AWE experience to start this off. I know Ted must have experience, so I put him as the start. If you have different opinions please let me know.

I guess this will be a AW-like start, tight build? delaying contact?

Archer rush sounds fine to me. What should we research? Iron Working would be nice to have.

I don't think Microbe and I are in any SGs together, so I wouldn't know if he's around or not

Barbslinger and gozpel know I'm always around. SGOTM being in a separate forum did make me not able to catch this in the first minute.

[barbslinger]

On the archer rush, we don't get much choice since we will be at war with the first civ we meet. We need a settler farm, hopefully the capital, and then rax,workers and archers until we get IW. I threw the archers out there because we could elect to build cheap warriors for upgrade once we get iron. However, with the variant, we may want to forego the upgrade ploy and try and knock off the first civ we meet. Whe we meet another civ we mus wait 20 turns or until we destroy the first civ. Now! We can semi-sandbag, within the rules, by holding off on destroying civ#1 and not knocking off the last city until turn 20. Hopefully by that time we will have iron and can easily capture the last civ#1 city and declare on civ#2 on the same turn.
Again I put the archer builds out there because we will have to go to early war footing right away anyhow.

[scoutsout]

Originally Posted by microbe

I guess this will be a AW-like start, tight build? delaying contact?

Tight build and "builder's scouting"? (Close to home, looking for city sites...)

...and wherever you stick me in the order is fine. I think SGOTM1 on Akots team was my only AW experience... so I'm probably not the one you're looking for to start us.

...but I love a good slugfest, and I'm looking forward to this.

BTW, do we care anything about the Barbarian-Impi "puzzle" in this game, or have one of you guys figured it out from playing this as a GOTM?

Edit: Cross-posted with 'slinger, but he was talking about something else.

On Warrior Upgrades: It might be worth building a few warriors, but I like the archer rush idea. It'll probably work really well or backfire, but I like it.

[barbslinger]

Yes, IW will be nice to have. Remember we can do a no haggle trade before declaring so hopefully we'll get something nice before proceeding with the war.

[scoutsout]

...starting with Alphabet and Warrior Code, would we rather get Bronze or Pottery?

Though researching more than minimum will not help at first, eventually we're going to have to self-research... having something to trade with might be tough when we meet the 2nd or 3rd civ.

[microbe]

I normally go min on Writing and get it the first, which takes 50 turns. The benefit is that we can start right away, and should be able to trade it for Iron Working when we need it (probably the second war), and save money for upgrades.

On the other hand, we have to get Bronze Working first to research Iron Working. This means we have to probably research both techs ourselves and usually it's what AI will research too.

I'm actually inclined to Writing, and using archers to handle the initial wars, hoping to trade for Iron Working in 50 turns. But I want to hear comments from AW experts.

[mad-bax]

Originally Posted by microbe

I normally go min on Writing and get it the first, which takes 50 turns.

I'm actually inclined to Writing, and using archers to handle the initial wars, hoping to trade for Iron Working in 50 turns. But I want to hear comments from AW experts.

THIS IS NOT CONQUESTS! Tech costs and min and max rate have not been altered. Min research to writing will not take 50 turns.

[barbslinger]

I'd like to play a normal research pottery in 16 or so and then go writing. We should be able to trade for WC and BW and then use writing to get IW. Like MB states the tech costs and minimums are not in place here. We only have to deal with 1 civ war for 20 turns at a time. Let's see what Ted has to say. That should be a walk in the park. Of course it's Central Park around 3AM but still, come on. If we can get get 4-6 new towns down and can be building archers and warriors for MP we should be able to easily roll this continent. Once IW comes in, I would think the continent is guaranteed because by that time the only thing to hold us back is travel time.

[TedJackson]

A lot will depend on our immediate neighbours. Who they are and how many will decide whether or not an early Archer rush is going to be feasible.

Pottery or Writing? This decision is harder and will determine our early strategy before we meet anybody or know enough of our immediate surroundings to make an informed choice. Pottery at max followed by Writing at min would be my "gut" choice, allowing us to get a small native core up & running quickly. We can then help ourselves to the rest of our continent

I'll start tomorrow morning.


Ted

[microbe]

Originally Posted by mad-bax

THIS IS NOT CONQUESTS! Tech costs and min and max rate have not been altered. Min research to writing will not take 50 turns.

Thanks for reminding us. You really feel PTW is much easier to play than Conquests in many different ways.

[TedJackson]

SGM03-4000BC

0 - 4000BC
Settle on spot
Alice (Worker) W
Research Pottery @90% (15 turns)

1 - 3950BC
Alice road

2 - 3900BC
NTR

3 - 3850BC
NTR

4 - 3800BC
Alice road - mine
Pottery due in 9

IBT
Rome Warrior (Alf) - Barracks

5 - 3750BC
Alf S

6 - 3700BC
Alf S - spots Cattle 2S

7 - 3650BC
Alf SW

8 - 3600BC
Alf W

9 - 3550BC
Alf W

IBT
borders expand

10 - 3500BC
Alice mine - SW
Alf NW - spots Spices
Lux 10%

11 - 3450BC
Alice chops
Alf N

IBT
Rome Barracks - Settler

12 - 3400BC
Alf N - spots river with Game
Research 50% (Pottery @ EoT)

IBT
Discover Pottery - Writing

13 - 3350BC
Alf N

14 - 3300BC
Alf NE

15 - 3250BC
Alf NE - spots more Game

16 - 3200BC
Alf N

17 - 3150BC
Alf NE

18 - 3100BC
Alf E

19 - 3050BC
Alf E

IBT
Rome Settler - Granary

20 - 3000BC
Alf SE
Lux 0%

Notes
Alice should finish the forest chop next turn and can then irrigate & road the Game.

Alf is working his way down the mountains, keeping fairly close to home.

I haven't moved the Settler. I fancy the Red spot with the Floodplain and Game but the team can discuss other options.



Stats
Game date: 3000 BC
Firaxis score: 86
Jason score: 42

The save is > here <


Ted