eo1: The Blind Leading the Blind (or, don't be afraid to be stupid)

[eotinb]

With the release of civ4, there was never a better time to get into succession gaming than now. This game is for SG newbies looking to do just that.

Civ: To be determined
Difficulty: Prince (probably)
Victory: Let's go for diplomatic, since no one else seems to be and it will be a good way to learn about the new diplomacy AI
Map: Terra. If you don't know, it's an Earthlike map that's bigger than others of the same size (if that makes sense) and all the civs start on the same continent. Makes for a quite different play experience and, again, no one else seems to be doing it.
All other settings standard (standard size, medium sea level, temperate climate, normal barbs, normal speed)
Acceptable players: Anyone who has played in one or fewer SGs. If you're not sure but think you'd like to try this SG thing, please join this one. This will be my fourth (none completed yet) and first to lead. There are a couple of people I have in mind, and I will call you out if I must, but any SG noobs are welcome. I would prefer everyone have the game installed and working, but I can be convinced to make exceptions.
Other rules: Don't cheat or use known exploits (which there aren't any yet, but things change [Edit: Fobok informs me that there is one involving a bug in peace negotiation -- if you can figure out how to do this, don't]). Be nice to each other. That goes for lurkers too -- friendly advice and criticism is invited, but don't make us feel any stupider than we already do. Don't automate workers or city production, but feel free to fool around with having the governors manage worked tiles.
Roster size: 3-6, depending on how fast people express interest. I'd like to get this rolling pretty soon, so if there isn't a lot of interest right away, we'll start as soon as we have 3.

Roster closed
eotinb
Lord Genghis
Fobok
Xemu
Giga watt
Eyemaze
(The Caltrop will be a late addition)

 

[The Caltrop]

I'd love to be a part of this newb-succession game! Depending on when the game starts, though. I'm getting Civ 4 next week. If the game starts before then... Well, kick me out. But, otherwise, sign me up.

If I can't actually play, I'd love to help plan/strategise at least, as well.

 

[gmaharriet]

I hope you're serious about wanting a really and truly n00b, I'll give it a try. As you know, I'm still playing my first Civ3 SG. My only Civ4 game was at Settler level, and I did ok. Started one at Noble and barbs wiped out 2 scouts, 2 warriors and an archer about as fast as I could build them, so I stopped to give it some thought.

Prince level, huh? Kinda scary. Can we have lots of discussion before (and even in the middle of) turnsets...kinda like a training game for each other? If so, I'm in.

 

[Lord Genghis]

Sign me up!

With a name like "dont be afraid to be stupid" this looks like the ideal place to begin my SG journey.

 

[eotinb]

As you know, I'm still playing my first Civ3 SG.

Which is why I made the entry condition 1 or fewer SG games rather than no experience at all. Welcome (that goes for all of you).

Prince level, huh? Kinda scary. Can we have lots of discussion before (and even in the middle of) turnsets...kinda like a training game for each other? If so, I'm in.

Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, the points of this game are to get used to SGs (i.e., be stupid with pride) and learn civ4. I am not in any hurry to win, and in fact if we lose, I won't cry myself to sleep.

I'd love to be a part of this newb-succession game! Depending on when the game starts, though. I'm getting Civ 4 next week. If the game starts before then... Well, kick me out. But, otherwise, sign me up.

If I can't actually play, I'd love to help plan/strategise at least, as well.

If this rate of interest keeps up we may start tonight. If we do start before you get the game, you are more than welcome to join in the discussion. I may even keep a seventh spot open for you (off the books of course) once you get your game.

 

[Fobok]

I'd like to give this a try too, please. I haven't played any succession games before of any game, but it sounds like it might be interesting. Single-player I'm still struggling on Warlord level.

Don't cheat or use known exploits (which there aren't any yet, but things change).

There actually is one, with the AI, in negotiating peace, that people should keep an eye out for when playing online. I saw it mentioned in either strategy or general discussion, (can't remember which). You can make the AI give you anything you want in negotiating peace by exploiting a bug with an error message. I tried it as a test in a single-player game and it worked rather easily. Not that I think anybody'd use it in this, but people should be made aware of it, especially so word reaches back to Firaxis and hopefully get it fixed.

 

[eotinb]

Welcome Fobok and thanks for the heads up on the peace negotiation exploit. I'll be sure to keep a sharp lookout for this among this crew -- I can tell by your avatars that y'all are incorrigible cheaters and exploiters.

I want to keep one spot open for Xemu, who went to the trouble of basically asking for an SG like this in the forum. We have one more spot for another idiot, I mean noobie. The Caltrop, I have demoted you to seventh given how fast this is filling up, but as soon as you get your game, you're in. If we burn through the turns so fast that it gets to you before you get the game, we may skip you (because that will mean I'm up next and it's my ball so I can take it and go home if I want to) or may not depending on your ETA. I'm leaving the sixth spot open for whomever, and I encourage interested noobs to post even once we find that sixth person. Xemu may not take his reserved spot and The Caltrop's delivery guy may decide to keep trop's copy of the game for himself (in which case, delivery guy: let us know and you can have his spot). And if there are lots of noobs left hanging, someone else may take pity on you.

Any thoughts on the civ we should play? What civs and/or traits have you not tried in your SP (SG-talk for Single Player) games? I was thinking about Catherine -- I haven't played her yet, nor have I seen a SG using her -- but it's wide open at this point.

Also, any questions before we start? I won't say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I will say that this is the place to ask it. If you've never played an SG before, there are a couple of things you need to think about:

1. Learn how screenshots work in civ4. I'm happy to explain if I need to.

2. Make sure you figure out how you plan to edit screenshots. I like the shareware program IrfanView for clipping and MS Paint for dotmaps and other drawing tasks, although I plan to try to get the most out of the options under "strategy layer" in the game and I encourage all of you to do the same. I can explain the strategy layer as well.

3. Figure out how you will host your screenshots. I've been using Photobucket without complaint for a while.

4. Take a cue from our comrade gmaharriet and get organized. You'll probably end up in more than one SG and taking some time now to organize your saved file directories, your photobucket (or whatever) subalbums, etc. will save you headache in the long run.

5. Figure out now to upload the save files. First time I tried to upload a civ4 file to the CFC server I couldn't get it to work. This was weird because I'd never had a problem with my civ3 saves. Turns out the default extension for civ4 games was not acceptable. I'm sure this will be fixed soon (if it isn't already) but you can work around it by zipping your saves, changing the extension (but make sure you tell us so we can change it back), or hosting them elsewhere.

6. If you post full-size screenshots to the thread, it will make your text run past the screen for most people's display settings. To avoid this you can clip the images to highlight the relevant part or put all the images in a separate post from the text. Or you can just make us use the horizontal scroll.

7. Figure out how you want to keep your log and how to make sure you do the right number of turns.

Some of this is covered on the sticky's in the civ3 SG forum, and I suggest you check them out if you have more questions. Or ask and someone will answer.

Once we get started, I was thinking we could go 30 turns for the first person (that's me!) and maybe 20 for the rest of the first round, then 10 for every round thereafter. How does that sound? Like Harriet said, feel free to stop at any point and ask for advice from your idiotic, I mean inexperienced, teammates.

Uh, one more thing (as if this post isn't long enough already). I've edited the initial post to include a ban on automating workers and city production. I haven't tried either one in civ4, but I have read that worker automation is still pretty sketchy and I've never seen the point of automated production. On the other hand, I encourage everyone to play around with using the city governors to manage worked tiles. If they're good enough for Sirian, they're good enough for me. They are not a Ron Popeil craptastic infomercial device though, so don't think you can "SET IT AND FORGET IT!"

 

[Fobok]

Also, any questions before we start? I won't say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I will say that this is the place to ask it. If you've never played an SG before, there are a couple of things you need to think about:

1. Learn how screenshots work in civ4. I'm happy to explain if I need to.

Hadn't even thought to look into this until now. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out, though.

2. Make sure you figure out how you plan to edit screenshots. I like the shareware program IrfanView for clipping and MS Paint for dotmaps and other drawing tasks, although I plan to try to get the most out of the options under "strategy layer" in the game and I encourage all of you to do the same. I can explain the strategy layer as well.

Is Photoshop good for this? Or should I pick something that's less resource-intensive, to use while Civ 4's running?

6. If you post full-size screenshots to the thread, it will make your text run past the screen for most people's display settings. To avoid this you can clip the images to highlight the relevant part or put all the images in a separate post from the text. Or you can just make us use the horizontal scroll.

Not directly related to the quote, but how many screenshots should we aim for per turn? Or just see how it goes?

Once we get started, I was thinking we could go 30 turns for the first person (that's me!) and maybe 20 for the rest of the first round, then 10 for every round thereafter. How does that sound? Like Harriet said, feel free to stop at any point and ask for advice from your idiotic, I mean inexperienced, teammates.

Assuming 6 players including yourself, that would put us at turn 130 at the end of the first round. Of what, 450? (I can't remember for sure.) It seems pretty far in, but having never done a game like this before, I have no idea if that's normal or not.

Uh, one more thing (as if this post isn't long enough already). I've edited the initial post to include a ban on automating workers and city production. I haven't tried either one in civ4, but I have read that worker automation is still pretty sketchy and I've never seen the point of automated production. On the other hand, I encourage everyone to play around with using the city governors to manage worked tiles. If they're good enough for Sirian, they're good enough for me. They are not a Ron Popeil craptastic infomercial device though, so don't think you can "SET IT AND FORGET IT!"

This'll definitely be a learning experience. I've always used automated workers, in Civs 2 and 3, and SMAC, and now Civ 4. Should be fun. Never used automated production, though, (except in Civ 3 Conquests multiplayer where I couldn't seem to turn the ruddy thing off), so that's no big deal. What about autoexplore?

 

[eotinb]

Hadn't even thought to look into this until now. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out, though.

It is pretty easy. Civ4 is nice in that it stores screenies for you automatically when you press PrintScreen, rather than having to alt-tab out and dump the clipboard into some other program. The default location of the screenshot directory (and saved games, among other things) is My Documents\My Games\... (if you can't find it from there you need more help than I can provide ).

Is Photoshop good for this? Or should I pick something that's less resource-intensive, to use while Civ 4's running?

Never used Photoshop myself (to do this). Since Civ4 saves screenies for you (see above) you can edit them all after your turns are over, so resource use is not a big problem. Do whatever works for you.

Not directly related to the quote, but how many screenshots should we aim for per turn? Or just see how it goes?

There isn't a hard and fast rule, but you'll figure out what's right for you. Aso, feel free to peruse other SGs to get an idea of what others do (in fact, perusing other SGs is just a good idea in general to see how these things work and to learn from others' successes and failures). I tend to use more than most, but that's just me.

Assuming 6 players including yourself, that would put us at turn 130 at the end of the first round. Of what, 450? (I can't remember for sure.) It seems pretty far in, but having never done a game like this before, I have no idea if that's normal or not.

The thing is the first few turns go by pretty fast since you don't have many units to move or cities to decide the production of. But we will go with majority opinion on this.

This'll definitely be a learning experience. I've always used automated workers, in Civs 2 and 3, and SMAC, and now Civ 4. Should be fun. Never used automated production, though, (except in Civ 3 Conquests multiplayer where I couldn't seem to turn the ruddy thing off), so that's no big deal. What about autoexplore?

I think you'll learn to love managing your own workers. Being smarter than the AI with respect to workers is one of the biggest advantages human players have. For anyone who has never managed workers at all, take a little time to learn about how many worker turns it takes to build the various improvements and how this is modified by terrain. Once the game starts we can talk about more civ4 specific stuff like when to chop before doing another improvement vs. when to do both at once (an option new to civ4). Also if you've never managed workers in civ4, you'll want to check out just about any of the civ4 SGs going on right now and pay attention to their discussions about making research decisions based on nearby resources (every worker action, other than moving, is unlocked by a tech in civ4).

As for auto-explore, I have never used it other than to drive away the last little fog in the ocean in civ3, so I don't know how good it is. Even so, I'm going to ask that we don't use it. This way those who aren't already familiar with things like ending on safer tiles and the Tarzan Gambit(TM) (in which you promote a warrior to Woodsman II so he can move twice as fast through forest and jungle, swinging through the trees as it were) will learn them. It's also important to make strategic decisions about where to explore next (generally towards neighbors to scout out their territories and find any nice spots you can beat them to, looking for concentrations of resources, when to head in a mostly straight line vs. when to circle around your immediate area, etc.) as opposed to just tactical choices (ending a turn on a forest for defense or hill for visibility and defense, popping goody huts, etc.).

In general, automation is frowned upon in SGs, but we shall see what people decide about the city governors (and the new goto command, which I think is much more SG-friendly than the civ3 version).

 

[Giga watt]

Any openings?

 

[Eyemaze]

I really want to join in with this if you have any openings left. Would be my first SG.

As for civ/leader I would suggest someone with creative

 

[Xemu]

Sounds great! I'm in... thanks for saving a spot for me. I expect to fully take advantage of the opportunity with lots of dumb questions!

 

[eotinb]

Eyemaze, sorry but you're the odd man (or woman) out. But as I said above, if there is enough interest I may start another newbie SG or one of the old-timers might take pity on the noobs. And please stick around and ask any questions or offer advice as you see fit. You might also think about shadowing some turns. That means downloading the save and playing the same number of turns as whoever is officially up. You can compare how you did to how we did. But if you do this, make sure not to reveal any spoilers (if you aren't sure if something is a spoiler, err on the side of not saying anything).

As soon as I get a little more feedback on which leader and/or traits people are interested in, I'll roll us up a start. On that issue, why Creative, Eyemaze?

 

[Giga watt]

Hm, Im not to sure whats a good UU, I like ghandi personally

 

[gmaharriet]

Just my opinion, but I found in the C3C SG I'm in, the early turns took about 1/2 hour each and more like 1 1/2 hours per turn later. It's not just the playing, but writing everything down in the turnlog and doing the screen shots. 10 turns is plenty after the very first 20 turns if you want it turned around fairly quickly. I've only really played one game of Civ4 at Settler level, so I'm still struggling with the interface and what tech does what.

You mentioned playing Catherine. I was trying to play her in the Noble game I lost so many units to barbs by the time I had my 2nd city, and Prince would be even harder.

Also, I don't know how to zip a file. (I can UNzip one though. ) I also have a hard time with cropping pics. Maybe one of the mods could advise on how to just upload a file.

 

[eotinb]

Hm, Im not to sure whats a good UU, I like ghandi personally

I don't particularly like the Indian UU -- Fast Worker, 3 movement instead of 2. It has its advantages, but it's certainly not my favorite. I also think perhaps we should steer clear of a spiritual civ. Don't get me wrong, they seem very cool and the prospect of an early religion is very nice, but between Sulla's walkthrough and the RB1 SG I feel like spritual is getting more attention than other traits at this early point (also makes sense because so many people want to fool around with religion and civics).

Also keep in mind how the traits could help towards our chosen victory condition: Diplomatic (since I haven't heard any objections, I'm assuming this is still the goal, but it's subject to change). It seems like the key to a diplomatic victory is being big enough to control most of the voting and popular enough to have a friend or two for whatever else you need. Of course, it might be more fun to pick traits that don't help towards that goal and find non-intuitive ways to make our traits work for us. For instance, Aggressive doesn't seem like a good trait for a UN victory, but you can use the UN as a backdoor to domination -- control enough of the world's population through warmongering that the vote is just a formality.

One other thing to keep in mind is the map: Terra. If we make it to the empty continents first, we should be able to fill up a decent chunk of them before the AI comes along. That could end up being a lot of votes in the General Assembly gained through essentially giving priority to naval technology. Making another plug for Cathy: Finanacial = money to do research and Creative = culture to grow borders and fill gaps in new continents fast.

 

[Giga watt]

Well I think Industrious is good for getting Wonders, wich really get all the bonuses of most other civs

I like spiritual because of the No turn anarchy, wich lets you switch civics at will, but I guess if they are overused then we should skip it

 

[Lord Genghis]

Cathy sounds good to me.

 

[Giga watt]

Im a wee lazy right now =/ whats cathy's traits

 

[eotinb]

See my plug above, Creative and Financial. Shall I read to you from the manual what these traits do, Oh He Who Shall Not Have To Lift Even His Smallest Finger?

Edit: I'm beat so I'm going to bed way early tonight. When I awake, I'll see what everyone thinks about who we should play, then do what I want anyway. I'll post a screenshot of our start so we can discuss where to settle, our initial research agenda, and take a stab at early build orders.