SGOTM 04 - Peanut

[AlanH]

Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 4 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
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.08 only.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.08.003 for Windows. There are insufficient Mac players to form a Mac team. so it will be played in Windows only.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of February 23.

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



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Ragnar of The Vikings
Rivals - 7 civs including Gandhi (who is locked in war with Ragnar)
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, cylindrical, medium sea level, temperate
Game Speed - Epic
Diplomatic Victory Disabled
All other settings are defaults

Notes

• Please visit the C-IV Warlords SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• Warlords v.2.08 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• Awards will be given to teams who achieve Space defeats to India 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.

Please enjoy the game

 

[klarius]

Signing in.
Settle in place or 2 north?
Worker or work boat first?

 

[a space oddity]

Space checking in.

The current position is high on food but poor on luxes. Moving north will keep all the food bonusses but it's always a gamble. Looking closely at the coast line it seems possible we'll just find water up north.

Workboat allows us to grow a bit before building the worker.

Regarding overall strat. How do we help Gandhi while being at war? Straight gifting will not work. We are lucky that Gandhi will prioritise the spaceship in the later game. Trading techs will help lowering research costs for them, but also for all the others. I smell war to keep the others from making use of it...

 

[klarius]

Well, building work boat we still will not grow, because that would be build as fast as possible.
It's pretty sure that's best after some thought and we should follow it immediately by a worker w/o growing in between.


For Gandhi I assume we try the same in principle as was tried w/o much success in the civ3 version.
Tech fast, kill or cripple the others. Have one weakling available to gift all necessary techs.
Let Gandhi capture cities with nice wonders, including internet, space elevator and three gorges dam at least.

 

[MailMan]

checking in.

first move: scout NW,NW.

I thing that 2N is looking more promising, especially production wise.

we should probably tech for worker techs while building a workboat.

overall strategy will have to take into account India postion. If they are locked like previous SGOTM, we might consider the same strategy, otherwise we might let the develop fast by clearing up the territory for them

 

[klarius]

Moving the settler is a pure crapshot as we cannot really find anything with the scout move. We gain some hills, but lose the forested hills for early MM options.
I'm now leaning to just settle in place. It's a good starting position and maybe there are other resources we just can't see (copper, horses, iron).
Build order would be work boat ASAP (10 turns 4sh + 1f, 1 turn 5sh +0f). Growing and building the work boat slower comes out about the same for growth, but working the clams earlier gives quite a bit more commerce.
Then worker immediately.
Research agri and mining, no matter which sequence, both will complete before the worker is out.
Then comes the first real decision, AH (AH before mining doesn't really help much, because the worker has to improve the corn first) or BW. AH will be pretty quick with 2 prerequisites, so that's my choice. But BW with the option to pop (and/or chop) rush the first settler instead of hand building with lots of food surplus is also an option.

 

[Wotan]

Checking in.

Civ3 version showed severe problems getting India to actually complete SS parts. Getting them the techs was less of a problem trough using a third small AI to gift all techs to and then "allow" Gandhi to cature the GLib.

But basically I think this game will boil down the the same issue, getting him to actually build the darn thing.

This game: Move scout first. But maybe use him to assess the situation in the south rather than the obvious NW,NW? That would help us determine if moving settler 2N is a good idea? And if teher is a good site for a second location in the grassland just below him? It could be on a river, it looks like an estuary to me?

 

[klarius]

The NW move of the scout is prudent, because it shows us the tile we would lose, if we go 2 north with the settler (could still be a resource).
I don't see that south would gain us anything in the immediate decision.

 

[civ_steve]

civ_steve checking in ... finally! Greetings a space oddity and Wotan! Welcome to Team Peanut!

Regarding capital - going South isn't an option; the mountain space isn't usable and that circle doesn't appear to have fresh water. (And we want to be coastal for our capital). So moving the Scout to the hill to see why that circle is there can wait.

Founding in place would be fine!

Going North would get us the same food bonuses, the same fresh water source. The circle'd space appears to be a Grassland / Hills / Forest, so we would lose the extra shield and the ability to chop the forest later. That's balanced against what we might find. Also, moving North would cause less overlap with a city founded near the Southern circle.

There's definite loss vs possible gain in going North. I'd found where we are. So Scout is now free to go where ever.

klarius's suggestion for WB, then Worker sounds good, as does the AGRI/MIN research path. I'm leaning towards AH, but BW is also sound, after the initial research

We still need malekithe and ainwood to check in.

Let's set up a tentative roster, and since we're still working on the (hopefully soon) end of SGOTM3, I suggest that the new members play first.

Tentative roster:

a space oddity
Wotan
malekithe
klarius
MailMan
civ_steve
ainwood

Long term strategy topics:

There's been a lot of discussion regarding vassals in the maintenance thread. I think the final ruling is pretty clear - if peace with Gandhi occurs due to Vassal States, declare on his master (permanent until vassalage subsides, if it does). If its within 10 turns of a prior peace with his master, send to Gyathaar for modification. Immediately!

There is an issue with WW. And how to handle it. Could be a real bear in the late stages.

And of course, how to get Gandhi to launch.

 

[a space oddity]

Does WW work the same in locked war as it does in a normal game? (not that I have much experience in that regard, my wars tend to be short... )

 

[ainwood]

Kia ora, all. Thanks to klarius for the prompt....

 

[klarius]

The circle'd space appears to be a Grassland / Hills / Forest, so we would lose the extra shield and the ability to chop the forest later.

Both our starting position and 2 north are plains hills. So the extra shield in the city center is not lost. There seem to be some more hills in the north and we might trade ocean tiles for land or coast tiles. But we lose some forests, both for cutting and early MM. Settling in place allows the work boat to come out earlier, because we can work the forested hills.
I doubt that there is anything great in the north. Gyathaar would probably not want the gamblers doing much better than the conservative players.
So it probably doesn't matter and I'm fine with both.

War weariness (at least with Gandhi) shouldn't be a problem. There is no need that we fight in Gandhi's land and that's what makes WW in CIV. Defending the home land gives no WW.
It's quite the opposite of civ3, where aggressive attacking kept WW low and defending increased it.

 

[a space oddity]

War weariness (at least with Gandhi) shouldn't be a problem. There is no need that we fight in Gandhi's land and that's what makes WW in CIV. Defending the home land gives no WW.
It's quite the opposite of civ3, where aggressive attacking kept WW low and defending increased it.

That's good to know. We might want to defend his homeland at some stage though. Which will be tricky to do without provoking him sending his troops our way.

 

[civ_steve]

Probably the best way to defend his territory is to declare on his enemies. Then we can weaken them, allowing Gandhi to expand.

Both our starting position and 2 north are plains hills.

D'oh, of course they are ... no food! Still, founding to the north would take out a 3 shield space and a forest.

 

[Wotan]

If this game is anything like Civ3 version was, Gandhi will be "surrounded" by us and thus protected from the wrath of the other AI.

Founding in place seems to be the option favoured by a majority as far as I can see from posts.

 

[malekithe]

Whoops, completely forgot this was starting so soon. Checking in. Nothing to add at the moment, but that'll change soon enough.

 

[a space oddity]

Is everybody agreed on the rosted Steve posted? Since I'm top of that list: how many turns in the first run? 30? 40? Do we need more discussion before I play?

Gist of the ideas for the first turns seems to be:
settle in place
production: WB (asap), worker
techs: agri, mining, AH, BW

Anything else?

Under the assumption the roster is OK: "got it".

 

[klarius]

The roster is Ok with me.
I would say play to some natural breakpoint.
Techwise my take is agri, mining then AH or BW, but the other of these two probably has to wait after TW.
WB (11), worker (15), warrior (11 at max growth) takes 37 turns total. There's nothing to decide there until then.
Agri, mining, AH is 36 turns, if I calculated correctly. That would make a nice breakpoint with the information revealed by AH.

 

[civ_steve]

I would say go ahead, space. If something weird happens, pop in with it.

I'll be out on travel tomorrow and back Tuesday night, so I'll probably be out of touch.

 

[a space oddity]

Done!

The save is here. I'll post the report a little later. I had one :weed: though, started tech-ing one turn late. I forgot how tense playing for the team could be, even with the turns pre-cooked, sorry. The rest went OK though. (I found Gandhi...!)