GR8 - Phoenix Rising

[Greebley]

There is a variant that I wanted to try before Civ 4 comes out. I don't think it has been tried before, so I am not sure how it plays.

Phoenix Variant
The idea is based on the concept that some of the most interesting games are a struggle to come from behind and win. This is the pheonix part - we have to rise from the ashes of our civ to win.

Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Deity
Variant: Phoenix (see below)
Civilization: Sumeria
Water: 60%
Map Type: Continents
Size: Large
Age: Random
Temperature: Random
Climate: Random
Barbarians: Roaming
Rivals: Random
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Standard
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On

Variant rules
1) Always war until 10 AD. We must declare war immediately without trading first.
2) After 10 AD, we can make peace and the game becomes "normal" We try to win in any way we can. All victory conditions are allowed.
3) We may never get a tech from the Great Library (i.e. we can keep it after it is expired). Tech recovery has to be done the hard way.
4) I consider renegotiating peace to be an exploit. We can make deals in a peace treaty if we have been at war, but we cannot use reneg peace to get around a broken rep. Other obvious exploits should also be avoided. If in doubt, ask first. Read the start of one of LKendter's games for such a list.

The reason I have chosen large is two-fold. First the extra civs will give a greater chance for brokering opportunities. Second the chance of a run-away civ is less because it is continents and because it has more civs. There will probably be nothing we can do to stop an early culture win by a single run-away civ. In a large game, this is less likely.

Sumeria has the best chance to survive the initials years and is thus my choice of civ.

Ideal would be if we survive the initial years and then struggle back for the win with an epic modern era war. The game may not match that ideal, but it should be a tough game.

Requirement:
I would prefer if players had an SG Deity win and AWE experience if possible.

Roster:
Greebley
ThERat
lfyuan
Northern Pike
MeteorPunch
Obormot

To discuss:
I am not sure if this game would be better with:
1) the first rolled start
2) An above average, but not awesome start.

Feel free to mention which of these you prefer. Above average means aproximately +3 bonus to shields and/food with at least one being food - where a cow is +3, wheat is +2, wine is +1, etc.

 

[ThERat]

signing in, this sound really cool. And since Gr7, I got back the liking for bigger games...

 

[Heroes]

There is another SG Handy 20 going on (where you just made an army), which is always war deity standard pang using Sumeria. From their experience, it seems that Sumeria is not really great for AWD. Although Enkidu warriors are cool, you can only wait to be attacked. It's awful that you cannot upgrade warrior to sword, so it takes quite long to have a reasonable attack force. From your rules, great lib is forbidden, so I suggest that Persia would be ideal. From the very beginning you can defend using spear behind walls. The only tech really needed is iron working, and you can go straight forward to it. Well, it's a gamble that you get iron nearby. But can you do better with Sumeria?
About start location. AWD is very very hard. Handy 20 starts from 3 cows. I would say it's not unfair to have at least an "above average" start, otherwise you (or we? if you accept me into roster) are likely to lose really quickly.
I have no SG experience. In my own computer, I won some sid games, with limited times of reloading, and not all of them start from >= 2 cows or alphabet. I read quite a few of the legendary games (scouting sid, 7+1, Arathorn's AWS, Sir Pleb goes to sid, beyond sid, etc.), so I guess I know most of the principles to win deity with confidence (diplomacy, artillery, army, and probably mapstat). Could I sign in?

 

[Northern Pike]

Thanks for the invitation. I'd like to play.

I prefer the good-not-awesome start.

 

[MeteorPunch]

lurker's comment: Ifyuan: not as hard as AWD in a sense because it's a matter of simply surviving. Maybe build 5 cities then nothing but Enkidus and catapults...you'll survive, probably with every tile pillaged.

Question about the catchup part. Since you will be way behind in tech in 10AD, it seems you should go 100% towards either self-research or buying techs. Buying techs is generally faster, but Sumeria is a scientific civ, which would be good for researching. How do you figure to go about this?

Greebley, put me down as a reserve please. It is a cool variant.

 

[Obormot]

I cannot resist joining to such a game. It sounds like a great variant. I think the starting position should be average or even below average to make this really interesting.

 

[ThERat]

agree with normal start..by the way, it's Phoenix IIRC

 

[Greebley]

Sumeria wasn't necessarily chosen because it is the best possible civ for this variant. I think it is the most likely to survive the initial part. I do agree that completely defensive isn't always what you want. I usually go for Warrior Code first even thought Sumeria has the excellent Enkidu.

So in short, some towns should be able to make it to 10 AD. We will want to maximize how many if we can.

Ifyuan, I added you to the roster. I am hoping you understand the basics of AW - your basic skills sound strong enough certainly. Probably the most important is to not attack when your unit will be killed on the counter attack - essentially how to get good kill ratios. (Another is don't pop-rush too much. This can be tempting in AW, but it kills one long term).


Roster:
Greebley
ThERat
lfyuan
Northern Pike
MeteorPunch
Obormot

Roster is full.

I will see if I can get this going tonight (eastern US time)

[Edit: Added you Obormot. Welcome. ]

[Edit2: Not sure on self research vs cash yet. Note that cash isn't better if you are so far behind there are no 2-fers. My plan was to have the game stop in 10 AD so we can discuss options. A lot depends. Will civs give us stuff for peace? Can we afford peace? In any case we may be able to leverage our free tech when we change ages.

[Edit3: And thanks for the heads up on how to spell Phoenix.

 

[Heroes]

Thanks for accepting me. But it seems that everybody misspell my ID: the 1st letter is "l" as in "last", not "I" OK, I would like to register a new ID ... but how to do it? Whenever I logout and try to register, it always says "our record shows you have already logged in under the name lfyuan". Gee ...

 

[Leha]

Thanks for accepting me. But it seems that everybody misspell my ID: the 1st letter is "l" as in "last", not "I" OK, I would like to register a new ID ... but how to do it? Whenever I logout and try to register, it always says "our record shows you have already logged in under the name lfyuan". Gee ...

lurker's comment: I was Ieha for a long time for the same reason . Small "l" is a bad idea for capital letter

BTW, I see roster is full, but I will follow this SG and if someone drops off, I'd gladly join.

 

[Greebley]

Thanks for accepting me. But it seems that everybody misspell my ID: the 1st letter is "l" as in "last", not "I" OK, I would like to register a new ID ... but how to do it? Whenever I logout and try to register, it always says "our record shows you have already logged in under the name lfyuan". Gee ...

So it is. I changed the roster. I am unsure if you can register another ID. A lot of sites require only one login with two being a no-no. You could check the forum rules perhaps. If there is such a rule, then you would have to PM thunderfall [edit: Actually starting with a moderator might be better] or something like that. Alternatively you can get used to correcting everyone. Or you could change your title to say that it is an l so ppl might notice when they look at your name.

For me, leaving out the e (Greebly instead of Greebley) happens to me from time to time.

 

[Leha]

In my case I PM'ed Thunderfall (thanx Tomoyo again) and problem was fixed in no time.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I think Sumer may be the best for this variant, but there may be reasons I can think that Greece would be better. We cannot build the GL right? This means that there will likely be a period in our AW when we are facing MA units. Comparing defense ratings between the Enkidu and Hoplite fortified in walled towns is 3.5 to 5.25. A hoplite will then be a good defender up to cavalry while Enkidus are almost even to the 4-point attackers (MDI, longbow, knight).

The main thing I think is a difference here is the counter-attack. With hoplites, enemies will be more weakened or die more often after attacking for our counter-attacks to kill them. With Enkidus we will take more losses, and sometimes there will be full health attackers sitting outside that we must kill with archers/horses/swords.

Regardless, I think Sumeria is great. Just looking at another possible scenario.

 

[MeteorPunch]

4) I consider renegotiating peace to be an exploit. We can make deals in a peace treaty if we have been at war, but we cannot use reneg peace to get around a broken rep.

Can this be clarified? I'm not certain of what it's about.

 

[Heroes]

I think Sumer may be the best for this variant, but there may be reasons I can think that Greece would be better. We cannot build the GL right? This means that there will likely be a period in our AW when we are facing MA units. Comparing defense ratings between the Enkidu and Hoplite fortified in walled towns is 3.5 to 5.25. A hoplite will then be a good defender up to cavalry while Enkidus are almost even to the 4-point attackers (MDI, longbow, knight).

The main thing I think is a difference here is the counter-attack. With hoplites, enemies will be more weakened or die more often after attacking for our counter-attacks to kill them. With Enkidus we will take more losses, and sometimes there will be full health attackers sitting outside that we must kill with archers/horses/swords.

Regardless, I think Sumeria is great. Just looking at another possible scenario.

Well, for the same reason, -- our ancient units will face middle age foes, -- I prefer Persia. Just get iron working, and we effectively have feudalism (for attack), and it's even cheaper in shields. Immortals are good to put into armies, an immortal army can kill rifle. But swords armies become obsolete faster. What's worse for Sumeria, swords must be built from scratch. For sake of defense, I prefer immortal army over hoplite. And Persia can build walls from the beginning, which makes their spears to be hoplites.

To be fair to Sumeria, after the effect of UU disappears, Sumeria should be better than Greece or Persia by a large amount, because of agr trait. No matter we'll do self research (I personally prefer it, maybe partly because I have played too many games without true self research ) or buying or steal (to make this variant even harder, should we ban tech steal? ), agr is better than com, and way better than ind.

 

[Greebley]

4) I consider renegotiating peace to be an exploit. We can make deals in a peace treaty if we have been at war, but we cannot use reneg peace to get around a broken rep.

Can this be clarified? I'm not certain of what it's about.

One can renegotiate deals that already exist (if the 20 turns are up). When you are at peace, then the deal "peace" can be renegotiated.

The problem with this is that the rules for peace treaties is different than for normal trades. You can make per turn commitments even if your reputation is broken. In this way, renegotiating peace negates most consequences of a broken reputation. You also do it without ever going to war.

To me manipulating a peace treaty just because you can buy techs for gpt there when you can't normally - that seems an exploit.

This means we will want to maintain our rep.

Also note that you CAN go for gpt in a normal peace deal. If you have been at war and declare peace, then buying techs for gpt is fine.

What isn't fine is doing it when you are at peace with a civ. Manipulating peace treaties is only for the end of wars.

 

[Heroes]

I cannot resist joining to such a game. It sounds like a great variant. I think the starting position should be average or even below average to make this really interesting.

If we are so confident that we can afford a "BELOW average" start, and we love to have a late war, -- how about using Germany?

 

[Own]

This is a great idea, came home and roster was full already . But I'm happy lurking.

Edit: Maybe if more people get interested, we could have a team b thread.

 

[Leha]

lurker's comment: Team B is a good idea.

 

[Greebley]

I played the first start I got. The gods (well actually one god - his name is Hank, god of odd protrusions on trees) dealt us an above average one, so we got both proposals

So far it is quiet. I concentrated on food which on this start means a shortage of shields. My thought was to get the second Enkidu warrior back home to guard the second town which is built with a quick settler. We haven't finished it so we can change our minds if we choose.

My thought was another Enkidu after the settler.

I am not sure where to settle next. We have a weird eclectic mix of terrains - marsh, jungle, forest, grasslands, desert, plains are all visible.

The jungle square next to the 3 other wines would be good for pumping out workers. I think we would prefer to settle in a higher shields town first somewhere along the river though and leave the worker town for 3rd or 4th.

I tend to always go with Warrior code first with Sumer