SGOTM 03 - Team One

[AlanH]

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 3 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.

The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Version
Your team will play this map in Warlords version 2.08, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 2.08. This is currently HOF_Mod-2.08.001, but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of December 1st.

Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Notes

• Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space victories in the least turns.
  
• 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.

Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun.

 

[Astrum]

Hi team

Looking forward to my first SGOTM !

 

[TDK]

Checking in... I must admit I'm at a complete loss as to how we are going to approach this one. My gut feeling says diplomatic by domination or something like that. To much uncertainty in leaving it to the AI.

Welcome to the new guys on the team

TDK

 

[mdy]

Hello everyone.

I haven`t played much with the post patch AI, but my initial feeling is that the quickest way to win this game is diplomatic by conquering a few AI`s and bribing the rest.

mdy

 

[mboza]

Hi guys,

I suppose one advantage of the huge number of civs is that we only need to be friends with half of them, but I doubt that is a viable starting strategy.

No city razing will complicate the diplomacy by domination, as will the fact it is an archipelago archipelago.

 

[TDK]

Just a few stray thoughts:

-Islands with sea-ressources could potentially carry large populations(to get the vote out) but would only count little towards the domination limit.

-We should probably avoid a state-religion until we can asses the benefits/liabilities in the diplomatic puzzle. We should look for religious minded leaders(like Isabella) with high food potential and attempt to ally them to our course.

TDK

 

[amh52]

Hello,

It looks like I am the only one left from the original SGOTM1 team. But then I didn't play SGOTM2 (congratulations for third place by the way!). Anyway, welcome to all. It should be a fun game.

Who wants to start? I would suggest TDK or mboza since they still have the rythm from SGOTM2 and then we follow according to time zone. Or what do you think? I live in California, GMT-8. How many turns do we want to play?

I am not too sure what to expect from this game with 17 aggressive AIs. It will be crowded, that's for sure. It will also be hard to get any early Wonder and probably impossible to get any early religion (not that I would want to). Hopefully we can ignore barbarians at least on our starting island. Can we actually assume that we will be alone on our starting island?

Do we want to settle in place? It seems like the best spot to me. We could also try 1E or even 2E if we want to split the resources between 2/3 cities. But I would vote for not moving.

Fishing seems like the obvious starting tech but it gets harder after that. We could then go with Sailing and try to quickly colonize the neighboring islands before the AIs take all the good (and bad!) spots. That might also give us a chance at the Great Lighthouse. Or we could go Myst-Poly-Priest for an early Oracle for Alpha, MC or CoL. We could try delay this but it might get risky with so many AIs. We could also start with a safe Wheel-Pottery-Writing and start building an economy. And at some point we should also do Bronze so we can whip and chop (and know where bronze is). What do you all think? If we start with Fishing we might want to do a quick warrior before we start a work boat. Or we could put some hammers into a barrack and switch to WB as soon as we learn Fishing. These are early ideas and I am certainly open to other opinions.

Has anyone tried a test game with so many AIs?

 

[mboza]

I am in the UK, on GMT. Could play friday night / saturday, but I would like to get some more warlords practice squeezed in before my first turnset.

My instincts are to go for fishing, bronze, then wheel-pottery-writing.

Need to work through the list of GP techs, as we are philosophical, so there might be a good shortcut in GP teching.

Expansive gives us cheap workers and 2 bonus health. Happiness will presumably be a limiting factor.

Move the scout E-NE, or NW-somewhere (probably NW-NE?), or SE for that blank bit in the settler's current fat cross?

 

[Astrum]

I played a test game and with 17 rivals we will want Sailing early to grab some islands before the AI.

Moving Scout E-NE will reveal if we are alone on a small island -> Sailing, or if there is room for cities up north, in which case we could take Sailing a bit later.

I vote for Scout E-NE, settling in place and research Fishing first.

Oh and I'm from GMT+2

 

[mdy]

I am on GMT (in the UK)

Fishing is the obvious first tech, after that pherhaps bronze working? Whipping/chopping are the only ways we will get anything built fast in that
location.

With 17 AI`s an early religion/wonder is probably too much to hope for.

 

[amh52]

They added the blue circles on the start map. There is one on the settler's location. There is also one 2 NE. There must be some resources up there, maybe in the water. Anyway I still prefer to settle in place.

I played a few random maps with 17 AIs and same settings. About half the time I was alone on an island and half the time I was sharing it with another AI. There is always room for 2 or 3 cities. So sailing is probably not that urgent but still a priority. Religions and Wonders surprisingly didn't seem far off from a more normal game.

I am ok with Fish-Bronze. That seems pretty solid and then we can decide which route to take depending on what we find.

It looks like you are all in Europe. We still don't know about TDK and we are still missing one player. I'll send him a PM.

How many turns should we play? Should we do 20 for the first round and then see how it goes (maybe go down to 10)?

 

[hamfist]

Hi team. Checking in. I'm looking forward to playing with you all.

I've played a few games with the 2.08 patch, and with this very crowded map we are going to have real issues with real estate. The AI is even better at noticing when space is an issue and placing cities appropriately.

 

[hamfist]

I think first move the scout up on to the forested hill 1E1NE and see if there is a similar amount of food on the other side of our little 'island'. If there is, it may be worth moving our settler. there are few hammers available in our default location and chops will get us more farther north.

I think first move is the Scout, then a screenie to see what what.

Tech wise, I'm definitely for Fishing then to Bronze then masonry and build the great lighthouse if possible.

Another possibility would be Orcale to Metal Casting and build the colossus early. Cleverly done we could get GL and Colossus. A strong gambit that puts us on a great merchant path.

 

[hamfist]

Another strike against settling in place: The farther clam will probably get used by a city on the other side for growth leaving us with 1 flood plain, 1 clam, 1 plains hill, ans a bunch of grass.

 

[mdy]

Moving the scout onto the plains hill first makes sense. It costs us nothing
and might reveal a better location for the capitol. After that 20 turns seems fine for the first round, then we can see how it goes.

Once fishing is discovered we can build a workboat, but before that should we build a warrior or part of the barracks?

If we could get the Great Lighthouse and the Colossus we would be in a very strong position, but I doubt we can get the GL given the lack of prouction in the capitol and the need for an early land grab. Grabbing metal casting with
the Oracle seems more feasible if we chopped most of the forests for it, but this would mean we could not chop rush anything else. The AI still seems to build the Colossus fairly late so we could probably still get
it without the Oracle if we found a reasonable production site.

Perhaps we should think about generating a great engineer for the UN at some point?

 

[TDK]

I'm at GMT+1. I agree we should move the scout 1E1NE. If we spot another fish etc., we should consider moving the settler in that direction too. We could use the production(especially since our expansive trait worker production bonus will only work with hammers, not food).

I can take the first turnset, but it probably will have to wait until friday afternoon(my time). I can move the scout in the morning and post a screenshot for discussion in any case.

TDK

 

[mboza]

Ok, shall TDK take the first 20 turns?

One argument for settling in place is that it will be difficult to find a better spot on this peninsula. I think there is a forested? grass tile 2E of the settler, which might be a good spot if there is seafood further east. Or settling on the spices themselve might be worthwhile for a second city if we move the settler NE.

I would start a warrior while waiting for fish. XP for him should be easy to come by. Doubt that this island is big enough for fogbusting it all to be difficult, and it will also help for happiness soon enough.

 

[TDK]

Hi guys,

I will not be able to post a screenshot tomorrow morning after all. I suggest the first player who is able to just go ahead and post the screenshot.

TDK

 

[mdy]

How do you post a screenshot on CivFanatics?

 

[TDK]

mdy,

press PrintScrn and paste it into ms-paint or similar program. Goto imageshack.us, they will host the picture for you. Once you upload the image file you will get the URL from the site and you can then paste it into civfanatics' "insert image" function.

TDK