Tupac08 - Simply Sid

[tupaclives]

Its a real shame that it wasn't until the CIV community had moved well and truly beyond Civ 3 that I finally got myself a copy of conquests.
Still, I would like to rack up a SG SID victory, for my own satisfaction, before the community becomes truly too small to do it.

No variant rules in this SG! The difficulty level - Sid- should be enough to make it challenging

GAME RULES:
Map: TBA
AI Aggression: TBA
Opponents: random?
Rules: Standard, all standard single player victories enabled (except wonder).
Barbarians: random?
Level: Sid
Version: 1.22
Exploits: see below

ROSTER:
-tupaclives
-CKS
-del62
-open slot
-open slot

In the first round each player plays 20 turns, then 10 turns each round after that.

24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 72hrs after that to finish and post your turns.

I like to discuss the map, civ of choice and other setting before I start.
I'd personally prefer NOT to do an archipeligo game as that seems to be the cheap way of beating SID, (personally favour continents, with a reasonable start).
As for the civ I think Agricultural is definitely desirable with the next best traits being Commercial, Religious, Industrious and Seafaring (i doubt we will be doing too much research of our own which makes scientific less attractive).

My personal preferences would be for one of the following civs
Iroquois, Dutch, Celts, Ottomans, France


Ideally I'd like 4-5 players on the roster but I'll see how much interest there is.

Come on guys, don't be afraid! What's a little SID between friends?

 

[tupaclives]

The following tactics are PROHIBITED:

RoP Abuse Tactics - Denying resources, blocking key tiles, RoP rape, or other ways to screw-up a civ via the RoP. A scout in AI territory has an explicit RoP and is subject to this rule.

Peace Treaty abuse - If you get concessions from the AI you must wait for the 20 turns to end before declaring another war. You may, however, incite them to war (demands to leave, espionage etc.)

Resource abuse - You can't disconnect / reconnect a resource every turn for the sake of building cheap units to upgrade with excess cash.

The negative science exploit - you can run a huge deficit (-250 / turn) of negative cash with a token penalty of one lost worker / cheap building. If cash will go below zero, the research level must be dropped.

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace.

Mass troop jumping - You can't give away a give a city to transport a large amount of troops to another landmass.

Worker blockades - You can't fortify a bunch of workers along the coast to prevent invasions, or shut down the borders with workers. The workers must be actively doing something.

You may not found and abandon a city in the same turn (this is to prevent 'crawling' your way through an AI civ's territory in 1 turn (by founding, moving a settler one tile, abandoning the city then founding a new city etc.)

You cannot gift the GLib away simply to allow you to gain a greater benefit by capturing it later. You may, however, capture the GLib as built by an AI civ at a later point in the game and receive the full benefit of doing so.

Standard LK house rules:
1) Worker automation of any kind is prohibited.

2) Our reputation is golden - please respect it.

3) You may not declare war on a civ if you are currently shipping cash and / or goods to the civ. The ONLY exception is a pure per-turn deal if it is the last war of the game. I still don't like this, but this is a concession to the SG community standards.

4) Even if not covered under exploits listed, please try not to use tactics that take advantage of holes in the game design.

 

[Aabraxan]

I can't play, but I have to subscribe! Good luck!

 

[Spoonwood]

If you play Sid, other than reloading, I don't see why you want to prohibit any tactics of any sort. From your description of the RBCiv rules, techniques perhaps best shown by these screenshots come as acceptable, if say used to get techs and/or military alliances. Though, I doubt the RBCiv community would like it.

 

[GamezRule]

I have only beaten Emperor, could I join? Would you rather have more experienced players?

 

[tupaclives]

@Spoonwood, those are pretty standard rules and prohibitions. It's a fairly small list of things I would consider exploits (for example I am not opposed to worker purchases before 1000BC, RBC rules consider that an exploit). I've won plenty of deity games with that ruleset there and I don't see why it would handicap our ability to succeed at SID.

@GR - Unless I have difficulty filling up the roster I'd prefer players who have at least a DG win under their belt. Nothing personal but DG and Deity are a big step up from Emperor, and I imagine that SID will be a further jump (due to the AI starting with 3 settlers ). Stay tuned though, there might be a spot for you yet.

 

[CKS]

I'm interested.

I've never won on Sid, though I have played it some. I have won on deity and demigod, though I usually play games-for-fun on emperor.

Continents sounds challenging, but I'm willing to give it a try. I think seafaring becomes helpful on continents to make contacts early, so the Dutch look appealing to me.

Random barbs makes me nervous. If the AI are nearby, they'll take care of the barbs for us, but if we have a relatively isolated start with lots of barbs, the first uprising will be a disaster.

Spoonwood's techniques, to me, fall in the resource abuse category and are thus prohibited by the rules for this SG. I can live with that.

 

[tupaclives]

Welcome aboard CKS!

I too like the dutch, they have a very nice UU, and do seem to be a popular choice at higher difficulties. We'll see what everybody else thinks though.

 

[Spoonwood]

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace. Mass troop jumping - You can't give away a give a city to transport a large amount of troops to another landmass.

Palace Jump (Civ/PtW/C3C)

Disbanding or otherwise losing your capital will result in the Palace being relocated to another of your cities. This is can be used as a "cheap" way of:

1. Relocating your Palace.
2. Teleporting troops from your old Palace location to the new Palace location.

RoP Abuse Tactics - Denying resources, blocking key tiles, RoP rape, or other ways to screw-up a civ via the RoP. A scout in AI territory has an explicit RoP and is subject to this rule.

ROP Backstab (Civ/PtW/C3C)

Attacking a civ which you have an ROP with can allow you to get into perfect position before the attack. This carries a heavy reputation hit.
ROP Resource Denial

Signing an ROP and using your units to block or hamper AI movement in their own territory.
Scout Resource Denial

Using a Scout or other non-military unit to block or hamper AI movement in their own territory.

Resource abuse - You can't disconnect / reconnect a resource every turn for the sake of building cheap units to upgrade with excess cash.

GPT for Upfront (Civ/PtW/C3C)

Signing GPT for upfront compensation from the AI, and then using a declaration of war or disconnect of trade route to cancel the deal. Comes with a reputation hit in some cases, in others it is free.

Worker blockades - You can't fortify a bunch of workers along the coast to prevent invasions, or shut down the borders with workers. The workers must be actively doing something.

Island block

If you fill the coast of a certain island with units, even non-military, the AI won't be able to land, thus isn't able to conquer that island, until it has marines.

HoF link

I don't see how those rules come as "standard" when the HoF competition around here still goes on, while the RBCiv games haven't had new civ III entries for years now. Also, AFAIK, the HoF staff has some special software to check HoF games. They didn't have an HoF immediately for civ V, and it's just starting now really, and I recall one moderator saying civ V was too early in its development cycle for an HoF mod at that point in time (or something to that effect). So, it at least appears that, the civ III HoF rules closely fit with the rules the designers intended the game to have. If that holds, then the HoF rulebook can't logically get said to have exploits or have non-standard rules.

The XOTM civ III rules do differ from the HoF rules. However, some of the "standard exploits" you have listed DO come as allows in XOTM competitions.

ALLOWED

Right of Passage abuse
Make an agreement of Right of Passage, move your units to their main cities and attack them all at once.

Free palace jump
When disbanding your capitol your palace will appear in the biggest other city. Your former capitol can be rebuilt by the settler it created. This way you've moved you capitol free.

Island block
If you fill the coast of a certain island with units, even non-military, the AI won't be able to land, thus isn't able to conquer that island, until it has marines.

Some of them come as banned also:

Scout resource denial
Place a scout on a square where there is a resource and in (future) enemy territory. As long as you have peace with them you can leave him there undisturbed and the other will never be able to build a road to it.

Deficit Spending
Should you have negative income to the point where your treasury goes negative, each turn that you are negative you will have only a single unit or improvement sold-off. It is therefore possible to run at huge deficits, and still only lose one item per turn. This is not allowed, and you must make every effort to maintain a viable economy.

Teleporting Troops by Palace Jump
Moving your Palace to perform a massive Teleport of troops is not permitted.

Deliberate destruction of trade routes
Deliberate action to break an existing trade route to cause the cancellation of a GPT deal without loss of reputation to the player, is banned as an unbalancing exploit.

XOTM link

I'd guess the HoF staff also has special software to check games.

For Sid level there simply doesn't exist exploits (except reloading). Gifting away/retaking taking The Great Library does qualify as an exploit. In other words, getting any tech past Education with The Great Library exploits things which really shouldn't exist in the game. Many Sid games rely on that exploit also, including the Magnificent Seven Plus One. You can easily get trounced in tech at Sid, and have a horrible economy. Both of those combined can seriously hamper one's ability to succeed at Sid level. Both of which can get helped via using some of those tactics, which the RBCiv community didn't allow. That all said...

Archipelago isn't necessarily a cheap way to go on Sid. If you play for the 20k you can *still* easily lose in the race for wonders and techs, researching for techs does make for a significant challenge, and you can easily get rocked via an invasion. But, you can win a Sid 20k without using any of the "RBCiv exploits/tactics". I've done it before, but I've used island block in some games also. I will say that island block costs so much that it barely works out as worth it.

 

[tupaclives]

Spoonwood, I hear your point about the HoF games using a different set of allowed/banned rules to the old RBC rules, but to me I feel more comfortable with the RBC rules. It's a personal preference, the way I've always played.
I know that the GLib capture is an iffy proposition, and I have ammended the rules to specifically NOT allow the gifting away of the GLib simply in order to capture it again later and be catapulted eras into the future. However, I personally see the GLib capture when the AI has built it as legitimate, particularly at higher difficulties due to the "all or nothing effect" of trying to capture a well-defended, more advanced city.

RoP Abuse is an ABSOLUTE no no to me. In the words of LK "Our reputation is golden, please respect it."
Worker blockades (or catapult etc.) of the coast is just way too cheesy to me, but I have no objection to blockading the shores with proper military unites (ie. having an attack and defence).

Reloading is a question of honour. I don't do it and I would hope nobody on the team were to do it but there is no way of checking.

I know you can get trounced at SID level... thats the whole point. If all I wanted was an easy win I would never venture above monarch.

I am not opposed to an 'pelago game if the majority of the team was in favour, but I personally favour an attempt on continents.

Given your objection to the proposed ruleset I assume you don't want to take part?

 

[vmxa]

HoF rules are a joke plain and simple. I always felt RBC was a tad too restricive, but not unreasonable. Sirian was pretty unyielding.

LK rules and Greebley and TheRat use very similars rules changing a couple. Combat settlers and Barenaked workers come to mind. I allow combat settlers, but do not use bait units. I would not ban that tactic in an SG, I just don't use it.

I think we varied on the gift city. I know we used the tactic and I have used in my own games a few times. It really does not come up that much.

Never used a palace jump, even with a leader. Just never saw any good reason to do it. There are good reasons to do it, I just never saw the need.

I do recall we replayed sets where there was a reload or a variance violation in a GR SG. Anyway it is up to the players to decide what rules to use.

 

[del62]

i have one on demi-god, won 20k on deity and am currently winning on deity, can I sign up

Also on rules is army blocking allowed to set up kill zones

on C3C doesnt palace jump become a defunct thing anyway

 

[tupaclives]

Welcome aboard. As for army blocking I'm ok with that, it ties up such a phenomenal amount of resources (an army) so I think it's acceptable.

Do you have any thoughts on civ/map type?

 

[Spoonwood]

I generally don't play succession games. Why do you want to get restrictive with rules, when no one on the team (so far) has beaten Sid? If you haven't beaten Sid, I strongly suggest playing archipelago. Playing another map type makes for too large of a jump.

 

[tupaclives]

Your call. But with all due respect, with regards to the rules I will make the decisions and I will live by the consequences.
I haven't beaten SID before but I am no schmuck of a player. I don't consider the rules restrictive. I consider them honest, and that is my opinion. If you don't wish to take part then I ask you to please refrain from critiscising the set up

 

[CKS]

I generally don't play succession games. Why do you want to get restrictive with rules, when no one on the team (so far) has beaten Sid? If you haven't beaten Sid, I strongly suggest playing archipelago. Playing another map type makes for too large of a jump.

I don't think the rules are restrictive. The only one I've ever intentionally broken is the worker blockade, and I haven't done much of that. We want to spell out the rules so that everyone can play together in a manner that feels fair and fun. The purpose of a succession game is to enjoy playing together, and that doesn't happen when there isn't general agreement on what techniques are allowed. If you aren't comfortable with the agreed-upon rules, you play a different game.

I don't know how continents will go, but tupaclives is proposing the game, so whatever he wants is what we'll try.

 

[Elephantium]

Isn't the point about worker blockades a moot point? IIRC, workers and arty can be captured from amphibious attacks (by any unit) in C3C.

@Spoonwood: If you think an archipelago-Sid game is better, why don't you start one?

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

Spoonwood is not so much saying they are better as he is saying they are easier. Better is a bit of subjective term. They are better for me as I like to fight massive numbers of units and nothing does that better than a Sid nation stuck on an island.

As to blocking, well I have seen the AI fill their island with units many times at Sid. They tend to always leave 1 hole though. Players tend top offer a target for landings, rather than block.

Contintents are quite doable, it is pan maps they are oh so hard to win. Of course all maps can be lost at Sid.

 

[DWetzel]

Isn't the point about worker blockades a moot point? IIRC, workers and arty can be captured from amphibious attacks (by any unit) in C3C.

They can, but I'm not at all sure the AI knows that as a general rule (except by the units that can attack amphibiously to start with).

 

[templar_x]

The funny thing is, if you really want to win fast, or lose fast, on Sid, you have to choose pangaea, respectively.

templar_x