SGOTM 01 - Team One

[AlanH]

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 1 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, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory. All victory conditions are still enabled though, with exception of Space Race, so you have to avoid getting another type of victory (and of course prevent the AIs from winning).

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of May 12.

Here's the start position.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

The map is hand built, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization4 v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award - the Gold Laurels.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy.

C. 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.

Good luck to your team, and remember rule #1: Enjoy your game

 

[blastoidstalker]

The blastoid stalker is here reporting to duty. Anybody else around yet?
no real preference on name so anything will work.

some initial thoughts

1) Get AH early to make war chariots which are very cheap expenable and great for knocking oiut a close neihbor early. of coure that means we need horsie's, the only game I have won on emporor was with Hatty and war chariots are probably the reason I won it.
2) I think we should get pottery early for those flood plains
3) maybe move settler SW and settle on plains hill, that will get us the cows and give us six flood plains and some choppable forest.

 

[Conroe]

no real preference on name so anything will work.

Personally, I think Alan got the name right. Team #1 or maybe Team One.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory.

Since our objective is fastest finish, I think we are looking at domination. A diplomatic victory will require us to research all of the way to Mass Media before winning. We might want to refer to Gator02 for some interesting ideas on early domination strategies.

3) maybe move settler SW and settle on plains hill, that will get us the cows and give us six flood plains and some choppable forest.

I agree that we should move the Settler. I would rather not waste a flood plain by settling on it. My thoughts were either 1N to the plains tile to settle in 4000BC, or the SW move that blastoidstalker recommended. The SW move is probably better, but it requires 2 turns.

 

[Harok]

Hello to my fellow Team #1 members.

Hattie is one of the few civs I have never played so I will need to try her out in a couple of practice games. Initial thoughts for important early techs however are Animal Husbandry for the cow and chariots, pottery for turning those floodplains into vast amounts of gold, and bronze working for slaves, chops, and spears/axes.

Unknown map type really complicates things because if we are going to be warlike and on a landmass too small for domination and can't reach others with galleys we will need astronomy as soon as possible. Early scouting will play a big role in which direction we need to go.

I have never played a game with this permanent alliance and war stuff so I am not sure how it will affect what strategies we need. Does locked into peace just mean we can't declare on them or other things like they will always be friendly with us and vote for us etc?

 

[amh52]

Greetings Team #1,

I am supposedly your Team Coordinator. Please let me know if there is any other volunteer for the job. I am relatively new to all this but I can do it if you want.

Please think about a name for the team. Or is Team One acceptable to everybody?

Also what are your preferences for the number of turns we play each round and in what order you want to go?

Otherwise I agree with what has been said so far. Exploration will be important as we'll have to find out how close we are from the Inca and our ally. It might decide if we need to build some units early or if we can wait and develop our economy more peacefully. I think the first option is probably going to be true but we'll have to see. AH, Pottery, Mining, BW sound good to me. My first choice to settle is the plain-hill you guys mentioned. An alternative would be just south of the warrior if we want to have a coastal capital.

 

[Conroe]

Also what are your preferences for the number of turns we play each round and in what order you want to go?

The first person usually plays 20 turns, after that we all take 10 turns each. Sometimes the first 2 or 3 folks will play 20 turns since there really isn't much to do during these first turns but press enter.

As for the roster order, I suggest we put everybody in order by their timezone. I'm in CST aka GMT-6. There is usually 24 hours allowed to post a "Got It" message, with another 48 hours to actually play and post the results.

 

[Mutineer]

Hi folk.

I think we should avoide deciding on strategy befor we know more about situation. I believe in farming floodplans. I believe cottaging them is a waste in many cases.
For intitial moves I would move warrior to East and see if there any sea resources.
This coastal desert hill is probably a good second city location.

Currently 2 posible settlers move look atractive.
SW to settle on plain hill or 2 moves North and posible settle on plains there, depends what is around.
I currently live in Japan, I think it is GMT+9.

Personally I believe a first few turns are critical and biggest mistake SG teams do is choise initial moves and research choises with out discussion. It is because plan can be formed depends on what become known after first few moves and it could be critical to victory.

 

[Conroe]

I believe in farming floodplans. I believe cottaging them is a waste in many cases.

I think the tile improvements should be tailored to the intended specialization of the city. In the case of flood plains, sometimes its farms, sometimes cottages, sometime workshops. In the situation we have in this game, we are looking at a large number of flood plains in our capitol. Since the beaucracy civic will give our capitol a 50% commerce boost, I think cottages would be the way to go. So, I guess that I would have to agree with BlastoidStalker and Harok and go with the cottages.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I am in Pacific time zone GMt -8 I guess.
I agree with Mutineer that we should take the first few turns very slowly, maybe we should take a 1 day break after about 5-10 turns and we have more map revealed to flesh out our stratigy when we know surrounding resources etc.
I do not feel comfratable moving the settler north to begin if there is nothing up there we will be either in a sub-optimal spot or we will lose several turns moving back south. I like the 1 square southwest because it is a plains hill (1 extra hammer) and probably can be turned either into a production city or a commerece depending on what our surrounding cities are like. If production, I agree with Mutineer on going with farms on the floodplains, if we want a commerece city though, I would want to put cottages there. If we place a city on the desert hill it would definitely be a commerece city and I would pepper its floodplains with cottages.

research path should start with AH IMO after that we need to see what is around.

 

[Harok]

I am in CST (GMT -6).

I think we all agree that early exploration will determine which direction we need to go with our research and what we build as we won't need a stack of chariots if we are on an island all by ourself.

I see the advantages of moving North but SW on the plains hill seems to be the best move unless the warrior moving East reveals a powerhouse coastal spot.

If we do move SW, Animal Husbandry to get the cow hooked up and find horses for our early UU seems like a no brainer as initial tech to me. Starting with a worker as initial build also feels like a good move as we will have plenty for them to do with Ag, Wheel, and AH.

As for the floodplains usage, if I am in a food poor spot, really want to specialize as a production center and have lots of hills I will farm floodplains but most of the time I see cottages as a more productive improvement. With so many floodplains around I can see a mixture as being good for us with cottages on 4 or 5 and a farm on 1 or 2. A capital running bureaucracy, with cottages on most of those floodplains, an academy and library would be an early monster research center. And in a game where speed is the only objective getting to techs faster than the AI (and other teams) will be huge IMO.

 

[Strobe]

Hi All,

I am in the UK (GMT +1/-1)

Too early for any real strategy , agree we need to be careful with the first turns and discuss things to set our long-term strategy.

1. SW for settler. The extra hammer is worth the extra move or worse case at least makes up for it.
2. Techs. AH first. If we can get to horses on second city then Pottery before Mining/BW otherwise we better get there quick as I'm not sure how the barbs will work out.
3. Production. Agree with Harok, worker first as there will be plenty to do
4. Worker Strategy. Need to see the surrounding terrain after settler move. It looks like there are enough hills though to make this a production centre . I would not normally farm floods but if we have 4-5 hills then it makes sense and this city alone will produce enough units for our early war(s). Second city using the remaining floods for a commerce centre but this is probably looking a bit far ahead at the moment

 

[Mutineer]

Personally I believe some quick GP farm is mach more efficient then commerce city. IN addition when city still small slavery provide incredible amount of production.

Again, it is subject to terran and how far/near our neybors are.
Amount of floodplans around making me think about quick civil service/philosofy/Music GP jump. Ofcouse, it is subject to how far/near our neybors are and what other resources/terran is around.

 

[Mutineer]

On other note, we need to create rooster and decide who playng critical first/second sets. They are really critical because it is time of formulation long turm strategy.
That make me think about warrior first, not worker, in order to find out more about thinks around faster. We can grow city to size 2 in process, not loosing mach of speed.

Remember, we are looking on hand crufted map, so useal assumption are off.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Who has played succesion game before, if anyody has a good amount of expierence they should be our leader. I have just stated one (STR Scorched lands) but have only played one turn, so I think someone slse could do a better job. I would think Mutineer or Conroe would make sense from their number of posts. Leader goes first then we order by time zones around.
turns 20,15, 10, 10, 10 etc.?
So Conroe or Mutineer, either of you want to do it?

 

[blastoidstalker]

I was thinking warrior-worker as well .

I am do not like to make my first city a GP farm because a GP farm's main resource, food is not effected by bureaucracy. I like a costal resource city with 3 food resources for a GP farm. Anyway I think this discussion has to wait until we see our surrounding area

 

[amh52]

I am in Pacific Time zone too.

I prefer cottages to farms too but we have to see. There are a lot of floodplains and we'll probably have a mixture. I would build a Warrior first for exploration.

I am ok with roster idea proposed by Blastoidstalker. We are still missing 2 players though.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Put the missing people at the end of the list. If they do not show up by then we will just skip them

 

[Strobe]

The important thing is what to do with the capital as it will be improved first and also has to produce the second settler/worker. I normally prefer commerce for the capital but I have had a similiar start before with hills and good food, this enabled me to make captial production centre and with beauracracy early giving 50% hammers I was able to produce my top unit in 2 turns from axeman to the end of the game. I actually had enough tiles left after the food I needed for the hills was sorted for 3 cottages which also kept it the commerce leader for quite some time anyway

I assume mutineer, you mean use the second city for GP farm rather than make it commerce ? This would be okay for a couple of quick GP's but then convert to commerce and look for a better GP farm with coastal resource ?

With the mystery map I agree a warrior first might help to work out what to do and benefit over losing a few turns efficiency.

 

[Mutineer]

Yes, not permanent gp farm, but initial gp farm. Convert or not convert depends on what other cities we will have.

Initially GP farm needed minimum worker actions (Only farm a 1-2-3 ties), compare to commercial centre. It could be used as secondary production centre from slavery and converted to commerce if nessasary later, after it whipe all infrustructure needed. I found that farmed floodplan provide mach more flexibility from start to finish, as they provided concentrated food and still give +1 food even if city unhealthy.

Greate people are mach more efficient source of research on start, making production/gp generation a king.

 

[Harok]

Well I got some practice starts in last night just picking a random map and settings and then altering the start to look similar to the one we have here. War chariots are indeed a solid unit and most effective when they are attacking civs before they can hook up copper or iron. And coming across a civ with metal means priority one for taking that civ down is getting it pillaged.

I still think worker first is best but I seem to be losing the vote (won't be the last time I am sure ) and I do see the benefit of going warrior first for more exploration and getting to size 2, I just think it is outweighed by getting tile improvement started sooner. For an early UU to be effective it has to come rolling off the production lines as early as possible.

Another thing to keep in mind with all those floodplains, health can quickly become a problem which may really limit how many specialists you can run.