SGOTM 08 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[AlanH]

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 8 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.

The Game
This will be the first Beyond the Sword SGOTM. Thanks, Gyathaar

Following his recent honeymoon in the Far East, Gyathaar, aka Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire, is just Crazy About Wonders. He has decreed that he will win a glorious victory and that his total Wonder points per turn played will then be the envy of the world.

Suryavarman II is Expansive and Creative, with the Ballista Elephant to assist in acquiring Wonders he can't build himself, and the Baray to allow him to build the Hanging Gardens.

It is a Normal speed, Monarch difficulty game on a Standard map. All victory conditions are enabled.

The Objective
The winners will be the teams who achieve a Victory by any means, and who score the highest Wonder Points per Turn Played.

Five Wonder Points are awarded for each Wonder controlled by the Team, and are displayed as the 'xx' in "yy from Wonders (xx/310)" when you hover your mouse over your score in the game screen. 310 is the maximum Wonder Points score you can achieve if you control all Wonders and National Wonders.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.17, using HoF Mod 3.17.001.

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

As there is no Mac version of BtS, Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows version on their system.

Schedule

• The Team threads will open shortly.
• The start files will be published on Friday, September 12.
• Please try to complete the game within three months of the start date.

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

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Map Parameters

• 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

• 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 highest Wonder Score per Turn Played, and the Wooden Spoons for the finishing team with the lowest final score.
  
• You can capture wonders, or build them yourself. Remember you cannot capture national wonders.
  A victory in turn 100 with 10 wonders controlled gets the same score as winning in turn 200 with 20 wonders..
  In BtS the max number of wonders is 62, including corp headquarters and holy city buildings, national wonders, palace and world wonders.
  
• 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.
  
• Do NOT view any other team threads until you have submitted your last save - win, lose or retire.
  
• Do NOT download any other team's save.

Enjoy your game, and please be nice to each other

 

[TheArchduke]

Welcome to the Real Ms. Beyond team thread for SGOTM6!

Current rotation: :
chmoosi(checked in)
gOng_civ'(checked in)
Jabah (checked in)
Kodii (checked in)
orb (checked in)
Storm666
TheArchduke (checked in)
timmy827 (checked in)

I took the liberty of copying a bit of Compromise´s guidelines.

General guidelines for play:

Philosophy: We want to be competitive, but it's more important to enjoy this. Respect your teammates and the other competitors. Share your thoughts and opinions and let others do the same. There are some stupid questions, but it's better to hear those than to let good ones go unasked for fear of the stupid label. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but we always play the hand we're dealt (or stuck with!).

Turnsets: When playing, please be aware of the discussion leading up to your turnset. We're not in a rush, so let the team come to consensus on the goals for the turnset. And if while playing you don't know what to do, stop and we'll discuss it. Generally, a turnset will run about 10-20 turns once the game is well underway. We're more interested in stopping at strategic decision points--next tech, where city, major tactical shifts--than strict turn counts.

Keeping it rolling: While discussion is important, we do need to keep things moving to complete the game in a reasonable amount of time. If you can't play then, that's fine, just ask for a swap or a skip. When you're up, please post an "I got it" after you download and open the save. If you have known time constraints, please let us know at that time. It might focus our discussion or prepare the player after you for a possible swap.

Reporting: Please include strategic and representative tactical information in your turnset report. New map info is best presented visually. Pay attention to in-game announcements for notices about wonders, religions, great people, etc.

Signs: Use of in-game signs is encouraged. But don't let obsolete signs clutter the landscape: delete the useless, redundant or irritating with impunity!

Options: I like seeing the tile grid (Ctrl-T) and the resources (Ctrl-R) both in-game and in screenshots. The Hall of Fame mod has some useful features. Some that I like are the "tile grid is on by default", the turn count as the clock text, and the alerts that let you know when cities are growing, expanding, etc. I'd also suggest turning on "Enemy moves", but later that might get oppressive. Ruff_hi has compiled a post with many of the HoF options, some of which include his code! Feel free to experiment. [Anyone else have suggestions for option settings?]

 

[Jabah]

Checking in as well...

Will post a few ideas latter when everyone has arrived.

Jabah

PS - TheArchduke, you might have gain the 'privilege' of having to frequently 'update/edit' your first post IF we want to keep an easy summary/table

 

[orb]

Hi folks.

orb checking in. - New to "The Real Ms. Beyond"

For information this is my first SGOTM so I dont want to go first. (Might need some help from the rest of the team to guide me through the first round of turns.)

 

[Kodii]

We are now somewhat at least half RB members, so we're good to go!

Welcome to all our new members. If you haven't already, check out the Realms Beyond. I hope you will learn a lot in these games (I always do). By the end, you will never trust the RNG again

Checking in

-Corporal Kodii

(Perhaps TheArchduke would like to "captain" this time around? He DOES have the first post )

 

[TheArchduke]

I knew something like that would be coming.

Well I can try to organize stuff and summarise our goals/decisions. If noone minds or wants the post.

But as a first, as building every single wonder by ourselves is probably nigh on impossible (though doable, but I don´t think so on this difficulty level) we will have to conquer the world to achieve high points in the end or make a very early diplo win with out own. Question is what is easier done?

 

[timmy827]

Signing in. Both early diplo and early military victory are complicated by the map type - I think B & S maps are sometimes fully connect pre-Optics/Astro and sometimes not. The good news is that AI production is usually poor on water maps and our capital looks to have strong early production.

 

[Kodii]

Generally, there will be some way to connect to all AIs without Astronomy. It has happened many times before, and we have failed to catch that many times before.

 

[Jabah]

I think we DON'T want a too early diplo/military...

I think we want a 'late' victory with all (or almost Wonders). With no real proof (just having a quick look at the HoF for Monarch/standard), I imagine a good team can win with all the (relevant for Wonders) tech discovered no later than T250/T300, having built (or more likely capture) all the Wonders. So I think a score of 62W/300T should be 'not too hard'.

With that in mind, I can't see anyway to get a better score with a faster victory as there seems to be too much Wonders arriving quite late in the tech tree. (And building Wonders or keeping cities with Wonders seems to be delaying fastest victory)
- For an AP or conquest (medieval time) around T100 (which seems unreal if we start on the 'Small' part of the Map), I can't see more than 20 Wonders built and certainely not in our hands.
- For a later T150/T200 military victory capturing all Wonders from that period, I can't count more than 30/35 in the tech tree for that time.


Random thoughts

It looks like we start on the small part of the Map (but of course need to be confirm in game). It would also make some sense for the competition, as we will have more problem keeping with colonial cost with early conquest, can't early rush anyone...

If it is the case we should make Great Lighthouse a priority.

The key question might then well be: "how fast can we get all techs" with a isolated start.
I think we will have to see the AIs as (early) partners, trading lots of techs (even giving them) until we are ready to take all the relevant cities (and launch the SS ?).

For early Wonders (if we adopt the late game victory), we should just build the most important one in order to tech and meet the AI fast. (GlH, GLib, Pyr?, Oracle for CivilService?)

Also, if in the 'Small' part, we will want Astro quite early (for trade and/or fast transportation)

 

[TheArchduke]

Well, for starters we should decide on a rough gameplan. I second Kodii, we should be wary of Astronomy. It was not needed too often so far. So our best bet for not getting the wooden sp... ehrm winning is by going into the lategame and win most wonders? Sounds like a plan.

 

[Kodii]

The scoring is a little bit intriguing. It was being discussed in the earlier pages of the registration thread. I advise everyone to check it out. If Jabah's math is correct, then it may be worth the risk to enter the late game for more wonders. However, I am going to propose an alternative.

There are many ancient to medieval wonders. There are also quite a few in the late industrial and modern. Very little in between. If we manage to build/capture all the ancient-medieval wonders by the time we achieve victory (at the end of the medieval era) then I believe that will easily maximize score.

However, that plan is also not exactly a walk in the park.

Thoughts?

 

[Jabah]

IF we are in the 'Small' Part of the map, capturing all Wonders in an early (-ish) war should be quite hard because of
1. logistics of bringing troops to the war zone.
2. keep maintenance cost in check with several cities in the same mainland far away (rush Palace probably needed).

Also, despite it being 'only' monarch, we should count on the AIs to help each other to tech well to start with while we are isolated, so having a strong military tech advantage will be difficult (but could be the difference between winning and losing team, as the always war SGOTM has shown with the fastest landing on the other continent with mace before lgbow).

Also winning early comquest could be quite hard, but maybe an early AP victory is easier (at least we will have to capture only the Wonder cities).

What could be really nice to have to help decision, is a 'chart' of the tech tree edited with the number of Points (national Wonder + World W, +religion, + Corpo) attached to the tech so we could see where to focus.

----
If we are on the 'Small' part, do you think we could (or should anyway?) do (1) Glhouse then (2) Oracle for CS then (3) beeline Astro. Is there any room for AP as well in that (both for the AP victory, but also mainly for the denial if the GOTM staff had stacked the deck against us with a possibly happy AP familly when we meet everyone)

 

[Kodii]

I have a feeling that we are on the edge of the larger continent, rather than isolated in the island chain, but we won't know that until we actually play the game.

My only problem with an AP victory is that we are unlikely going to be able to capture any foreign wonders.

 

[Jabah]

I didn't mean fastest AP victory, just an AP victory after capturing the Wonders cities, which compare to Conquest could be easier as we might leave some 'uncultured' AIs untouched (or have them help me by distracting real AIs).

The main problem with early victory is that on top of not many WOnders, we have to forfeit all the Corpo and most of the religion Shrines (which counts for almost 1/4 points)

 

[TheArchduke]

Well, the marble seems to be nearby, on an island?

In any case if we want to have a serious shot at many wonders we would need the right ressources, seeing we are not industrious and at monarch we can´t build everything. Or we chop/build a GW and try to get as many Wonders as possible.

From my RB Wonder game I managed nearly every wonder, except for on in medieval.

Or we go about it as a normal game aiming to conquer a lot of territorry later on.

I am not secure about making an AP victory, only managed to do that once.

 

[Kodii]

I am not secure about making an AP victory, only managed to do that once.

As am I. And I only achieved it before the changed the rule about not being able to vote yourself victor.

 

[timmy827]

For early Wonders (if we adopt the late game victory), we should just build the most important one in order to tech and meet the AI fast. (GlH, GLib, Pyr?, Oracle for CivilService?)

I like this plan, although with the amount of forests we have we could probably do two. GLighthouse is almost always the best for the map type in my opinion (other options are good, but only 1 wonder breaks the game's economy model). Oracle for CS is tempting but on Monarch I think it's too risky to base the strat on, even with gold at the start. Oracle for MC and Colossus often works well for this map type.

If we want to go for a late victory, we have some tough decisions to make on GP; we may want to hold on to some for a long time to ensure we can do the corps and shrines.

I took Jabah's suggestion to annotate the tech tree. Wonders are red squares on techs (didn't distinguish between national and world), religions yellow, corps green. Running totals at the bottom, although of course we won't go thru in exactly the layout order. The final total is missing one (the Palace).

 

[TheArchduke]

Thanks for the effort, timmy827, much appreciated.

One can see the expensive, wonder-few technologies that come with liberalism. Our initial start looks good, but unless someone objects, I am against pursuing an early victory without stone and marble nearby. Stone could be around the corner enabling us to go crazy on wonders.

Also for an AP victory the only early on we need contact with other civs which is also not too sure.

So I would suggest we go forward with a wonder-hungry standard approach to dominate the late game, but keep an eye out if we can establish early contact with all other civs and if we got stone.


I for one am would go for a 61 wonder late game win.

 

[Jabah]

Thks Timmy, that is exactly what I had in mind. (just a little correction, you put 2 WW at CoLaw instead of 1 (on top of religion), an 1 instead of 2 at Music).

All the 62 points could be scored with the 'normal' techs required for Space. The HOF fastest monarch standard size Space victory seems to be 1775AD which is T265.

Since Space in fact required a lot of extra techs compared to building Wonders, I timely UN victory (or domination or conquest) with 62pts could possibly be faster. We should set the 'aim' at something like a rate of 1 Wonders for every 4-4.5 turns.

'Fast Victory' with all the techs up to Military Tradition and Education (probably with Liberalism as well) score a max of Wonder of 38, so could be competitive IF done within 150-170T. (It might be more faisable than what I thought). The big problem with that is that all the Wonders are absolutely OUTSIDE the Optic-Astro path which will be needed (most likely) for any fast victory (either we are on the small part or need to get there either for conquest or AP missionary).

Whatever our aim (62w/250t or 38w/150t), I think the middle-term strategy should be the same with the following priority
1. Tech fast at almost all cost
2. Get the critical Wonder (GLH, Glib, Oracle, Colossus (from oracle?), Pyr?)
Having non-critical (early) wonders seems sub-optimal if it comes with a cost (research or growth), as we should be able to capture them. In fact except for AP victory, I can't see us having a 'early' victory without taking cities .

Jabah

 

[Jabah]

One more think regarding AP victory.
It could be quite easy, all you need is a missionary in a (small) city for each civ, and then a few extra for someone who is friendly (but with another religion so he won't be candidat - often you could be in his religion as well).
The only serious problem is getting a missionary before some AIs convert to Theocracy if it is their favorite civics (and I think gifting missionay is not working now in 3.17, you might have to gift city).