SGOTM 14 - Spooks

[AlanH]

SGOTM 14 - Humanitarian Portuguese Domination
Welcome to your SGOTM 14 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 here, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

The starting saves will become available on the SGOTM Progress and Results page on October 18th, at midnight, server local time.

Henry of Portugal intends to dominate the world, but he also wants to conserve as much as possible of its cultural diversity. This is a Demigod game, on a standard archipelago map. Thanks go to Ivan Larkin and CommandoBob for assembling the specification for this game. You can see the discussions leading to it in this thread.

The winning laurels will be awarded to the team that reaches a fast Domination victory with the highest "humanitarian" score. Each civilization that is still alive in your victory save will add ten points to your score. Each turn that you take to reach victory will deduct one point from your score.

The game will be played to GOTM standards. No one plays the save except the current team player. No replays except in the event of a crash. Set autosaves for every turn so that you only replay the current turn if you suffer a crash.

Here's the start. All the food, shields and luxuries you could wish for . Click the picture for a bigger image.

​

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Portugal
Difficulty - Demi-god
Opponents - 24
World - Standard (100 x 50), Archipelago, 60% water
Barbarians - Roaming

The map may have been tweaked

Game mods:
We shall use the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread. Note that Differential Naval Movement remains a feature of the SGOTM scenarios.

All the AI civs have been provided with additional defence in the form of a Pikeman to reduce the chances of too many AI-on-AI deaths.

In a deal which includes a resource, a millitary alliance or a trade embargo, the human player is not allowed to pay the AI more gpt to AI than the AI demands.

Detailed discussions of the reasoning surrounding this are available starting here in the SGOTM 13 sign-up thread, as well as in a number of other HoF and GOTM-related forums.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included. If you have played previous SGOTMs then you will be ready. Other players will need to download and unzip a small graphics mod pack linked in the Reference thread.

Please ensure that you have included the line: NoAIPatrol=0 in your conquests.ini text file:

A 'fix' for the Barbarians!:
As many of you know, the barbarians in C3C are 'broken'. This can be fixed by going to your \Conquest\ folder, and opening your Conquests.ini file, and adding a line noaipatrol=0 to the file. Whilst we cannot force people to do this, it will make the game a bit more interesting if you do. If you are not comfortable editing your .ini file, you can download a utility here to do it automatically.

Players running Civ3 Complete for Macintosh should contact me if they have any problems with the mod. If they are not running a patched version they will need to use FileValet to compress their saves for upload, and they may also need to use it to 'clean' downloaded saves before playing.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared, skipping references to PtW or Vanilla versions of Civ3.

The GOTM Reference Thread.
The SGOTM Reference Thread.

Notes:

• ONLY Conquests version 1.22 (C3C) is supported for this SGOTM.
  
  
• All teams will compete for a single award set:
  The Crimson Laurels will be awarded for the Domination victory with the most civs still alive, and in the least turns. Each live civ adds ten points. Each turn taken to achieve victory deducts one point. If two teams score the same then the most humanitarian team wins - the one with more civs alive. If this figure is also equal then the Jason scores will be the tie breaker.
  
  
  
  
  The Wooden Spoons are for the lowest Jason-scoring finish, win or lose, but you have to try to win!
  
  
  
  
  
• 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.
  
• Have fun, and be nice to each other

 

[ControlFreak]

Hi Team! Checking in.

 

[denyd]

Ok, I'm on board for this one

I'll need to check if I've loaded the Med Resource pack since my last re-install

 

[Andronicus]

Checking in

Welcome to new members of Spooks (and returning member) .

I'm about to board a plane for Melbourne so will be inactive over the weekend. To make up for it I thought I would start the ball rolling with some thoughts - so you can all pull them to pieces

I used editor to make a few mockup maps of starting position with similar settings - one has a crowded start and the one I tried playing a bit had more immed avail territory. Note this was before AlanH indicated 24 rather than 25 rivals and that there wont be any other seafaring civs, also I didnt give the AI their extra pike.

I went for curragh, warrior, granary, settlers - managed to squeeze in 11 aggressively stealing a couple of luxes. If we are more crowded we probably will want settler first to claim good spot, also if 5fpt spot avail then settler before granary. Research I went for writing on min - with all the contacts my initial curragh (and later ones) made I got good trade from that despite being 4 turns behind AI. Then philo which I got - I'm doubtful if CoL first is doable. - I got free lit and built GLib - I dont think this something we necessarily want, but it certainly sped my way into next age. SoZ went quite early - there were many civs with ivory access - perhaps we have been generously granted exclusivity - somehow I doubt it. I bought lots of slaves - this map was more spagetti pangea, if more islands this wont be poss (I had 19 slaves by 1000BC).
Big mistake - I had no iron on this map (I expect we will in the game) Twice I was rop raped by civs I had bought iron from - once with 6 turns remaining on deal (Greece), once turn after making deal (India) by prev "buddies"

Some randomn thoughts
- we can spreadsheet optimal 4 turn SF, but first few moves of scout will tell if we have room to settle.
- Note choping ivory forest, then mining and irrigating ivory plains, allows for use of extra commerce - on river, so roaded give 3 commerce when roaded in despo). Also using wine hill early - 2 commerce without roading (of course road as soon as pracical to reducelux slider) Oyster is fish equivalent. Giving options to fine tune no shield wastage for max commerce.
- Sev early currughs more valuable than scouts - I lost miy starting scout early to barbs. Later scouts useful if snakey pangea once AI has got rid of barb camps, obviously not if islands.
- writing at min gets my vote for initial research (some of the latest civs I met on 2 civ islands didnt have alpha as I was appraching medieval). Early MM important if more of an island topography (which I expect to be the case)
- Egypt was eliminated by Iroquois during AA - I wasnt paying attention, but it was after I had est embassy so I ought to have been able to see when they were going under - then would have needed to decide if worth gifting a town (at this state of game none are junk towns so I doubt it would be worthwhile)

Any thoughts on dom tiles required to win and how many civs we can hold in tundra reservations? Really other than this it is a fairly normal (OK very crowded) DG domination game with generous start on 'pelago map.

I am assuming we will want to research to cavs, possibly carracks (never played Portugal before) so we can get a late GA to boost cav production and pund the AI into submission. Is this possible, or over optimistic?


I would attach my starting saves from my practice games if anyones interested, but I dont see the upload button (I recall there was a problem with that some time ago) and I've forgotten how to add attacments now

edit - I worked it out - just had to look .
Unfortunately I seem to have copied one map over the other in the editor so I now have only the one map - the one I have already part played and discussed above

Hopefully it attaches

 

[markh]

Hi guys, checking in.

It has been quite a while I played a "normal" civ3 game. I just play civ3 in Greebley's AW-SGs, so I am a warmonger at heart.

I think I just played 2 archipelago maps ever IIRC. Guessing from previous SGOTMs and all the goodies we have at the starting position I would expect to be alone on a smallish island.

Curragh as a first build seems a good choice to me to get some early contacts.

 

[Paul#42]

Good morning everybody to a brand new challenge!

When I opened this and saw posts from DF and denyd, I quickly closed it to make sure I was not in the wrong thread

Welcome on board to all new players and to the old ones - for now just a couple but Killercane had asked to be our lurker and Abegweit had also indicated to come back - not sure if and when those two will show up here...
Quite a crowded crew this time but after losing all players in SGotm13 this might be a relief...

I guess the start might mean a lot of discussion before we move the worker... The luxury and chop is always tempting but the extra food also is...
Spreadsheets will tell.

Even the scout has three valid options imo. I'm inclined to go south but N-E also looks good and NE-E is slightly stronger towards the interesting direction...
Only the settler looks fix to me.

Good thing we have quite some micromanagers and spread sheet addicts on the team.
But the other teams also have so no reason to lean back...

I'll try to make some kind of plan this weekend but I'm pretty sure Più will come up with a spread sheet before I can do

Gentlemen, please post your thoughts.

edit:
line-up

Markh - up
Denyd
CF
Più
Andro
Yilar
Paul - just played

 

[Più Freddo]

Hello everybody. I'm Più Freddo and I'm a Civ III addict.

Actually, I did a spreadsheet for the four-turner a few days ago. I agree with the points made about 3 gpt tiles and tiles needing no improvement. Only I put a Worker in directly after the Granary in order not to have to use the commerce-less BGs in the time before improvements are finished.

My emphasis was commerce maximation.

Curragh first seems to be a no-brainer with the BG Cattle. It is a BG Cattle off river, right?

The Settler factory could run at size 4..6, but if we build an MP Warrior in two turns and grow to 5..7 we make more commerce working the Oysters also.

I see two options before cultural expansion: either work the Wine for more food or work the Ivory Forest for more shields. The first option ends up one turn slower than the second, but gives more commerce. (More food is slower because it has one more growth cycle before the Granary.)

If 274 beakers is correct for Writing, then at max research it could be ready in 2430 BC (turn 33) working the Wine or 2310 BC (turn 36) working the Ivory Forest.

First Settlers are 2750 BC (turn 25) and 2850 BC (turn 23), respectively.

Philosophy as second tech could be ready as early as 1830 BC (turn 48) counting the Capital only.

I'm not so sure about the 24 AI tribes. Won't that be very crowded? Do we need a Settler Factory at all?

 

[Paul#42]

Hello everybody. I'm Più Freddo and I'm a Civ III addict.

No need to tell us

Curragh first seems to be a no-brainer with the BG Cattle. It is a BG Cattle off river, right?

Yes, indeed. Lovely.

If 274 beakers is correct for Writing, then at max research it could be ready in 2430 BC (turn 33) working the Wine or 2310 BC (turn 36) working the Ivory Forest.

That calls for Writing at max imo...

I'm not so sure about the 24 AI tribes. Won't that be very crowded? Do we need a Settler Factory at all?

Great plan so far.
I'll have to check in detail at home.

 

[Yilar]

Sounds like a plan Piu... I think we can all agree on irragating the cow to begin with

Also does your spreadsheet send the warrior exploring or leave him on mp duty?

 

[markh]

Sounds like a plan Piu... I think we can all agree on irragating the cow to begin with

Also does your spreadsheet send the warrior exploring or leave him on mp duty?

We have a scout. I would send him either NE, E or SW, S to follow the river.

 

[ControlFreak]

I agree with Writing ASAP. I agree with settling in place and we might want to do that first and save a screenshot with the newly visible tiles.

Normally I would agree with irrigating the cow first. I just want to talk a little about roading then irrigating the ivory, before irrigating either the cow or the wheat. This would make the 3gpt tile already available for the second citizen (we grow before it's completely irrigated, but the worker finishs at the end of turn 8 before the citizen has to work the tile). With the ivory roaded, we can also keep luxury off so Sci stays at max for another pop size. Plus the worker would be able to move directly from roaded cow to wheat on subsequent improvements. EDIT: First unit is curaugh so road doesn't help with that.

I haven't spreadsheeted it to see the growth penalty for not irrigating the cow first, and how much we need the extra 3gpt for Writing. If we go with a granary, it may not be worth wasting the extra civ on 1spt or 2fpt instead of the forest ivory as PF suggested.

 

[ControlFreak]

We have a scout. I would send him either NE, E or SW, S to follow the river.

I think Yilar was talking about the warrior that PF had in the build queue after the curagh.

 

[Paul#42]

How about starting the scout to N-NW and let him draw a clockwise circle around our capital to look for best spots to settle?

I see no urgent need for quick contacts in this one (critical techs Pots and Alpha from the start). But urgent need to decide whether settler before granary or after - or no granary at all.

Any early warrior should be used for MP otherwise he'd better be a scout.

 

[Più Freddo]

Also does your spreadsheet send the warrior exploring or leave him on mp duty?

All Warriors are MP in the spreadsheet. We could make a Scout out of one and lose some commerce. But I think 24 AIs are likely to find us pretty soon. One Scout should suffice.

 

[Più Freddo]

settling in place and we might want to do that first and save a screenshot with the newly visible tiles.

A very good idea.

Normally I would agree with irrigating the cow first. I just want to talk a little about roading then irrigating the ivory, before irrigating either the cow or the wheat.

I can try to make a sheet like that in the weekend.

 

[markh]

I think Yilar was talking about the warrior that PF had in the build queue after the curagh.

Oops, I missed the attached file. I am getting really old....

 

[ControlFreak]

My in-laws are in town to watch the kids for Mrs Freak's and my anniversary, so won't be posting much this weekend.

 

[denyd]

I've been looking at the starting location and think it will probably take a spreadsheet going 30-40 turns deep to decide whether the worker should go for the ivory or cow first. I agree with Writing as the first tech and a curragh as the first build after than I'd like to consider either a 2nd worker or settler based on what the scout finds. If a settler factory then a worker to move to get the wines connected and to help with a chop to speed the granary build. As for the scout move, either a N-NW or a SW-S seem to be the primary options.

And just in case there's no tradition of naming cities, how about Casper for the capital. After all he's the most famous Ghost (Spook) I've ever heard of.

 

[Più Freddo]

AlanH has just pointed out that there's no BG under the Cattle. So the
spread-sheet goes to the bin.

 

[Andronicus]

I think worker should go to cow first -> irrigated for 4fpt which fits in perfectly with growth), but may work out well to road ivory on way to irrigating wheat (wheat is irrigated turn after grows -> 5fpt). Order of builds is complicated by no BG under cow - if build curragh first we get more wastage, if warrior first it appears just before it is required for mp at size 2. I suggest warrior, curragh, worker. Decision on granary or settler next would depend on how much room we have and how good other sites are. On the other hand, 2 early curraghs would go a long way towards early contacts. This quote suggests curraghs more valuable than scouts :

It was certainly created using the Archipelago option in the editor, and it sure looks like one to me