AG8 - Let's try Sid

[Aggie]

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

GAME RULES:
Map: custom made by Skyfish
AI Aggression: to be determined
Opponents: random?
Rules: Standard, all standard single player victories enabled. Barbarians: to be determined
Level: Sid
Version: 1.15
Exploits: the RBCiv exploit list is very clear and complete, so I like to stick to those. We don't need to be honourable though.

ROSTER:
-Aggie
-Nad
-Greebly
-Jack Merchant
-anarres
-TedJackson

First player starts with 25 turns. Next up can take 15/20 turns, and the next leader 10-15, then 10 each turn after that.

24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 48hrs after that to finish and post your turns.

I like to discuss the map, civ of choice and other setting before I start. The Dutch were already done by LOTR10. However, I was thinking about an agricultral civ as well. I highly doubt the usefulness of Scientific in a Sid game. I am thinking about agricultural and commercial (Iroquois).

Regarding map, I'd say continents. And if we would go seafaring: archipelago. Then I'd go for England (commercial/seafaring).

 

[Greebley]

You mean you don't have to use boats to redline coastal cities for extra challenge?

I have 3 games ending so I think I will join

 

[Aggie]

Greebly, indeed we don't have to do that Welcome

 

[Nad]

Checking in. This should be a tremendous challenge.

Possible civs: Celts? Sumeria? Egypt? Iroquois?

Loads of possibilities, I agree with agricultural being a very strong trait at high levels. I think militaristic and expansionist will be the least useful traits. Nevertheless, I'll happily play any civ.

As for map: 60% water/continents might be best, we'll have to see what we get.

 

[jack merchant]

Sign me up too then . Archipelago is apparently the 'easiest' way to contain Sid, but continents could work too; I'm OK with either.

Commercial/Agricultural should be the strongest traits here as I don't anticipate doing our own research ever here. Religious should work too to survive cultural assault; industrious is a distant 4th (but does come with a valuable starting tech).

I like the English if we go Archipelago too, though chances are the AIs will already be past NAvigation by the time we get Republic . Otherwise I'd go for the Iroquis too, but I'm fine with everything.

 

[Aggie]

Welcome jack! That leaves us with one open spot When we have decided on map specs and civ I will ask Skyfish to make us a great map. I am sure that he won't make it impossible or 'easy' for us

 

[anarres]

I will play too if that is ok, although my last Sid attempt was kinda lame.

What are the map specs you are giving Sky to generate the map with? i.e. have you made special requests?

 

[Aggie]

anarres, welcome I'd like to discuss map specs and civ with the team. Until now we've had a little debate already.

 

[Aggie]

CarlosMM will not play this game, so there's an open spot.

 

[Greebley]

I am going to vote for the Celts (assuming they are Agri, Rel)

Sumeria is by far the best to hold off early attacks from the AI, but otherwise less useful than other civs. Hopefully we won't get attacked early

Iroquois would be a good choice.

I think I would like to try a Agricultural & Religious civ. The reason is that communism is now a very nice government. However, our games never seem to be able to switch due to the Anarchy period being too long.

Given the ability to rush temples in 10 turns to get a cultural expansion plus the ability to switch to Communism (and back) seems as strong or stronger than the commercial trait and I would like to try communism.

Is my memory correct that the Celts are Agri & Rel. They will be my vote. I can't remember if there is a second Agri, Rel as an alternative.

 

[Aggie]

So we have the Celts or Iroquois for a continents map? Any other comment on English with archi map?

I like the reasoning regarding the religious government. However, communism isn't THAT good for a smaller civ, which I think we will be. But being able to swap easily from one government to another is worth something.

 

[anarres]

My vote is Iros or Celts. Given the Celts start with Pottery and Ceremonial Burial, and the Iros start with Pottery and Alpha (and the MW's are 10 shields cheaper than GS's) my vote is for Iros.

Religous is nice, but that's all it is IMO. Our culture on Sid will be terrible anyway, so the temples will only be good for getting the cities 21 tiles to itself. After some time AI cities will take these tiles anyway since their local culture will (probably) be much higher. The advantage of Communism is only realised at about 2xOCN and higher, when it truely excels. If we ever get to 2xOCN it is probably fair to say we will win the game.

My final reason for prefering the Iros (apart from loving commercial) is a follow on from Alphabet. Not only is Alpha an expensive (most expensive?) first level tech it will mean we get Writing in turn 50, and have a stab at Philosophy by turn 65. Even failing the Philosophy gamble (likely on Sid), we still get to Republic much much sooner.

For these reasons I prefer the Iro's, along with the much superior upgrade path for MW's...

Disclaimer: I only have started 5 or 6 Sid games, so I can't speak from too much experiance.

 

[Aggie]

Anyone against the Celts on a continents map? If not, that is what I ask Skyfish to make for us.

 

[Greebley]

I am not completely sure I follow the argument that since the AI will have more culture that culture is therefore unimportant in terms of flips.

If we double our culture then we half our chance of flips no matter what the enemy culture. Not only that it seems even more meaningful to lower from 10% to 5% as compared to 1% to 0.5%. In other words, if we are way behind in culture the percentage chance to flip is affected more by any additional culture we build.

It is true when one is far behind one simply avoids cultural wars by razing cities for example, but I am really not sure that in sid we will be able to do that. The AI will settle quickly and put pressure on us culturally.

So say we have 4 cities and build 4 temples. Then instead of getting 2 culture per turn we are getting 10 per turn. That will give us 5x the culture which means 1/5 the flip chance. This could make a huge difference in keeping or not keeping cities.

The other aspec though is that it can be very nice to get the cultural expansion earlier to get the full 20 squares within earlier.

As for switching to communism, my best experience with competing with a vastly superior AI is jb2. In that we ended up with a huge war. WW goes to max almost immediately and you are often bound to 20 turns of war. I am not at all sure that republic with 100% WW is the best government to be in expecially if you are small and have a very limited selection of Luxuries.

Anyway that was my thinking. We will see how it works out. I do agree that the Iroquois would have been a very good choice as well.

-------------------

I tracked down the winning sid game and also give a link to jb2 that has strategies that may be relavant (or maybe not). Are their other SG's that would be relavant or useful?

LOTR 10 - sid win

jb2 - Balancing 2 strong AI's to a win

 

[Aggie]

Oops. I misread anarres comment and he favors the Iroquois! That means that we have a majority for Iroquois! (3 to 1 with Nad undecided). So opposed to my previous post I will ask Skyfish to make a continents map with us as Iroquois. Sorry for the mix-up It was clearly either Celts or Iroquois for us all...

 

[Greebley]

Out of curiosity what is the criteria Skyfish using? That we have a reasonable start? Superior start? resources? Starts on a river so our Agriculture has meaning?

Or will he just check that the first map he generates isn't a complete dog and give it to us as is?

 

[Aggie]

I am not speaking for Skyfish, but I expect him to make a map with a decent to good start. I asked him to make the map to avoid getting one in which we only can build three cities without a river (an extreme example). I don't expect him to make one with a superior starting postion and bad ones for the AI. Because then we just as well may go for a new deity game

I think that the AG3 Monster Map is a good example. Looking at it you wouldn't expect it to be custom made. That one was done with human intervention to avoid an ultra good start like I got in another Monster Map game (at CDZ - 10 cows or so in the first 4 cities).

 

[TedJackson]

Hi Aggie,

I'd like to join.


Ted

 

[Aggie]

Welcome TedJackson

 

[anarres]

Greebley,

You make some good points, but I still lean towards the Iros. For me the UU chain is also very important, and I'd hate to see all those GS's wasted in the Middle Ages.

Religous just doesn't fit well with me, although this is probably because I don't play it that much, and when I do I usually regret not having a better trait. As for the war aspect - you may be right, but unless it's an AW game I hope we would never reach such epic WW (level 4!).