SGOTM1-Persia Team Shevek

Welcome to your SGOTM1 game thread.


First some procedural stuff.
Although the rules for SGOTM have not been set in stone yet, we will be playing to the rules listed >>HERE<<
Please take the time to read them.

Here is a reminder of your start position


Here are the two saves.

SGOTM1-CivIII1.29f

SGOTM1-PTW1.27f

IMPORTANT REMINDER
The file naming format that you use to pass the game on must be rigidly adhered to in order to prevent games getting mixed up.

Name your save files like this

SGOTM1TEAMNAME-DATE.SAV

For example - SGOTM1STAFF-3000BC.SAV

Later on it may be possible to submit the saved games through the GOTM server for scoring purposes. Alanh will have special requirements for doing this which will be made clear at that time.

Roster

smackster
Pindicator
Northern Pike
tao
grs

The order shown above is not the order you must play. When you have decided on your order of play I will amend the Roster above.

The first player plays to the end of the 3000BC turn (turn 20)
Everyone else plays 10 turns from there. Please try to stick to this. People finishing on the wrong turn is my biggest headache believe it or not.

3000BC is turn 20 of course.

Since I play on Macintosh, 1.29f is essential for me.

I would prefer always war, since I never did it before.

I either have to play first (tomorrow evening GMT) or last, since I will be gone on Easter vacation from friday till Monday early evening.

Go ahead and play tao. This team has been formed late for a reason.Shevek and Northern Pike will (I believe) find it difficult to play anytime soon. I'm not sure about pindicator. I've played with both shevek and NP who are extremely reliable partners. I haven't played with pindicator, but have no doubt he will be just as good a team member.

Added grs to the roster.

EDIT: Well it had to happen. Shevek and smackster are next to each other on the spreadsheet and I followed the wrong line.

Smackster is in - but I can't change the team name.

Hi all,

as a late applier mad-bax joined me to your team. As I see we seem to be the late starter team anyways. It's ok for me if you start tao, I can play next if no one else wants. I would do my move on Friday and would prefer to get the save some time around noon GMT+1 (which is your timezone too I guess as you seem to be from Germany too).

I hope the other 3 will join in soon - maybe we should pm them each.

I will add some of my thoughts about our start later tonite in some hours from now as I am afk for some hours now.

--
grs

Hey all; glad to be a part of the team! I just wanted to vouch for myself, as I am relatively new to Civfanatics.net, but I am an emperor level player (haven't tried Diety or Demi-god yet, too timid), and am relatively new to the SG idea. I am currently participating in two SGs and from them I believe I have the basic concept down.

But I am very excited to be a part of this team, especially with someone as high a ranking as tao I know I'll learn a lot from this and will have a blast as well.

Wherever you put me in the order works for me, however the next three days are a little busy, so I may be a little slow should my turn come up then.

Oh, and my time zone is PST (GMT -8).

Just checking in, looking forward to the game.

Smackster

Glad to be playing with you all, gentlemen.

Tao and Grs, it's fine with me if you play first and second.

Pardon me if I'm stating the obvious, but in AW we won't want to send our early exploring units any farther from home than is necessary to locate a few good city sites. Our explored area should expand like a spot of oil, not in straight lines.

First Move.

I would move the worker to the hill on the south, if we don't see a good location then move the settler to the other hill. If we still don't see any good bonuses then I might settle back at the start or near the water if it is fresh. But then what do I know.

Smackster (still dreaming of Barbados)

Just some thoughts from me, while prolly being the novice here. So please only see these as incentives.

Settling:

I see the obvious advantages to exploring to the top of the hills, though the starting tile is not too bad to settle on. Northeast are a coast and two woods and southeast are two plains and one wood. So we can hope for a cattle or wheat to the south and that's it!? I am prolly the novice here, but I would settle on spot and work the bonus grassland, if there is really some bonus in the plains we get it when the radius expands. If not we waste two worker and two settler moves.

Research:

Pottery - Iron Working at max. Then stop or maybe Mathematics at min?! On the other hand we are not going to crank out settlers like mad (I guess), so maybe start with iron working asap!?

Are we going to fix an overall strategy, like

1. What do we trade; e.g. are we giving bronze and iron working away?
2. Will we use the option to "run" from diplomatic contact if we meet another civ soon or are we trying to anihilate the first civ we meet immediately?
3. Are we trying to build a settler factory - surely not on that start tile!?

Just some general ideas would be nice.

I will play the opening turns this evening.

Since nobody objected, I will go Always War.

I wouldn't found on our starting location. Doing it that way would give us a capital with six or seven water tiles, and no ability to build ships or a harbour. Even given that we hope the game will end in the Middle Ages, this would be needlessly limiting.

I agree with Smackster--worker to the southern hill first, and if that doesn't make it clear where we should found, settler onto the northeastern hill. This will give us a good idea of our surroundings before our first crucial decision; and granted my assumption that we shouldn't found on our starting square, it would only cost us one turn in getting our settler to the likely default location, the southeastern forest tile.

Grs, regarding your first point, it would be nice just to sit on Bronze Working and Iron Working, but our opportunities to trade will be so few that we may have to yield BW at least to make anything out of them. We'll just have to play it by ear.

Re your second point, the obvious answer is that there's no need to go looking for trouble until we've got some Immortals built. But I should point out that my opinions reflect what's necessary to survive at deity; I don't claim to know much about the niceties of winning as quickly as possible at regent.

Persia: industrious and scientific; UU is immortal with attack 4: nothing stronger until cavalry; let's try to win before we face them

F10 tells us the competition: Zulu, Babylon, Aztecs, Iroquois, America

4000: worker E to mine and road bonus grasland; no extra food in sight; found Persepolis on the spot; we won't grow beyond size 12 before the game is over; hopefully;
start warrior; research on iron working 50% (make some money for trades on contact)

3750: warrior done; goes S; s next

3700: road done; research up to 90% at break even; worker goes N of Persepolis to mine and road; warrior sees goody hut;

3650: goody hut gives 25g

3550 Persepolis b warrior s spear; warrior explores NW

3500: cultural borders expand; N sees goody hut

3400: goody hut gives settler founds Pasargadae s warrior

3350: we start chopping furs forest

3300: Persepolis b spear goes S to choke point; s settler; N warrior sees dyes

3200: in the south we see dark green borders: Aztecs; no contact yet but withdraw

3150: Pasargadae b warrior s worker

3100: forest chopped; settler in 2 turns since we lack food; we know the north of our peninsula

3000: Persepolis b settler s warrior

Status:
2 towns each pop 1, 1 settler; iron working in 7 turns; 42g; Firaxis score 65

Ideas on how to continue:
contact Aztecs when we know iron working; see what deal we can get
found new city 1 turn S of settler position; build barracks to hopefully upgrade warriors to immortals or build veteran units; road, don't chop forest because we need the shields



The Save.

Got it! Will play my turn tomorrow starting at about 12:00 GMT. Any advice is welcome

Given this dry start and the likely length of the game, we may never have the chance to irrigate our homeland. Our choices regarding city locations have to accomodate this fact.

Specifically, if we found on the desert tile just to our settler's south, we'll get a city which--lacking irrigation--will never be able to work more than three land (i.e., shield-producing) squares without running a food deficit. I think we should found on the furs tile just to our settler's west, where the city would have access to fish and would eventually be able to work five land squares (counting the city square itself, in both cases) without a food deficit. Also, a city in this spot would be able to poach one of Pasargadae's grassland tiles for faster early population growth, whereas a city on the desert site would be condemned to a food surplus of one until it could get a harbour built.

Good luck, Grs.

Northern Pike: I think you are right, though I hate losing the forest when settling there, I will do so - partly for the added shield in the city core.

Are we going to continue research after finishing Iron Working? As we can't make peace we wont be able to trade tech for peace and we will only have one trading opportunity per civ we meet - that's only 5. We will get warrior code and ceremonial burial and maybe a 3rd tech from the Aztechs. Maybe stop researching till then and continue the lower path to Monarchy at max possible?

Any better ideas?

--
grs

Wow, something weird just happened and I got un-registered... took me a while to figure it out, too. I was wondering why I wasn't getting any notifications for thread updates. Mad-bax, if you lurk in on this, I don't suppose you know why that happened?

I like that idea for a 2nd city location. A possible third city could be on the hill NW of the grassland in the south; with us doing AW, that may be a needed defensive bonus.

As far as tech goes, Monarchy may be a good choice just because of the small amount of techs that it needs to be researched to get to it, but what about Republic? I know with GOTM Republic does have some free troops, and that WW is not too bad. I don't have much experience with Republic in GOTM games, so maybe some other people with more experience can shed some light on that for us all.

I also have two additional questions:

1) What is the order?
2) When must we declare war on an AI civ? Immediately upon contact, after first turn, when they contact us? I know there are a couple AW varients out there.

Pindicator - No I haven't a clue. The forums have been a little fragile since the server software update and you may notice that "usercp" is screwed ATM. Just take it in your stride, I'm sure it will all get fixed... one day.

This is just an off-the-cuff reaction, but getting the Great Library with a Great Leader would be tremendous, so it would be a pity simply to abandon the tech path leading to Literature.

I'd had no idea that Republic functioned differently in GOTM play. Does anyone--perhaps Mad-bax, if you're lurking--have a link to this information? And BTW, do the special GOTM provisions even apply in this case, given that no extra download was necessary?

Let's play in the order Tao-Grs-Smackster-Pindicator-NP. Pindicator, I put Smackster ahead of you on time-zone grounds.

We're playing a relaxed version of AW in which the declaration of war isn't required until the end of the first (and only) session of diplomacy with a given civ, whether initiated by them or us. Mad-bax covers this in his rules post (link in the first post here), and you should check his wording.

I am quite sure there are NO rule changes in this game.

Mad-Bax even posted that he removed mace and rambo from the PTW version (for the human players). There are no GOTM rule changes in this game - so no differential naval movement, no upgrade path for swordmen (immortals) and archer...etc.

I PMed him to confirm, but I think Regent is no option anyways. Even in the modded GOTM version, there's no change to war weariness and we may need some MP in cities later on as we can't trade luxuries with anyone, so I definetly vote for going monarch.

The idea about the Great Library is nice, no civ in the game has Writing as starting technologie. I have never had a great leader that soon in a game though and I am sure if we really get one that soon, we will find a way to get him to rush a wonder we need - be it The Great Library or The Great Lighthouse.

I will turn research off after iron working an see what we get from the Aztechs, if I make contact.

--
grs