SGOTM 07 - iWarbadly (Mac)

[AlanH]

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 7 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 team lists are at the end of this post.

The Game
You are Qin Shi Huang, the great Chinese leader. You find yourself on a tiny world, surrounded by all the other vanilla civs. You can only build or own a single city, and the difficulty level is .... Deity!

The Objective
This Deity OCC game is on a Tiny map, at Normal speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, and the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the earliest victory date in the game.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV version 1.74, and using the latest vanilla HOF Mod.

Windows players need the HOF Mod at: HOF-1.74.002.
Windows players who have not installed BtS 3.13 will need to swap their vanilla CvGameCoreDLL.dll file so that their Civ4 installation is compatible with copies that have the BtS installation. Download the new DLL zip file here. The enclosed Readme file gives details for the installation.

Mac players are in a separate team as the HoF Mod cannot be made to work cross-platform. They will use Civ4 for Mac version 1.74, and HOF-Mac-1.74.002.

Schedule
Start files for each team will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of April 24.

Please try to complete this game within three months of the start date.

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

​

Map Parameters

Playable Leader/Civ - Qin Shi Huang of China.
Characteristics - Industrious and Financial, starts with Agriculture and Mining
Unique Unit - Cho-Ku-Nu (Crossbowman)
Rivals - All of them
World size - Tiny
Difficulty - Deity
Landform - Continents
Environment - Temperate climate, low sea level
Game Speed - Normal
AI Aggression - Normal
Barbarians - Normal
Permanent Alliances - Enabled
City Razing - Enabled. China auto-razes to enforce OCC.
​

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.
  
• 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. The laurels will be presented to the three teams who achieve victories in the fewest 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.
  
• Do NOT view any other team threads until you have submitted your last save - win, lose or retire.
  
• Do NOT download any other team's save.

Enjoy your game, and please be nice to each other

 

[mikeyredk]

Alright lets get things started!!

 

[dr_s]

I'll try to post a couple sample starts over the weekend. I'll worldbuilder them to be similar to the starting location.

Some questions of strategy:

(1) Worker steal? Yes or no?
(2) What wonders do we want to go after? Pyramids seems like an obvious choice.
(3) What's our victory goal? I would guess we may need a permanent alliance to win. I'm thinking that maybe diplomatic is the best shot? Or ... ?

 

[peter grimes]

In the Peaceful game I played, the wonders were snatched up pretty quickly. However, I didn't have stone or marble.

In the war game I played, it was very difficult to get going - the AI starts with something like 5 archers. If we do a worker steal before we have any military, we're pretty much condemning ourselves to a quick death. But maybe we'll get an award for that?

I think if we can manage to found a religion, we might be able to keep our neighbors happy - unless one of them is Montezuma or Isabella, and they've founded their own - in which case we can only hope to adopt one of them.

Diplomatic does seem possible - but this means we'll have to build the UN, which also means being the first to Mass Media, and keeping a couple of Great Engineers on the side. So for that matter, Pyramids is good. In my OCC games I usually try to get the Hanging Gardens. We'll need all the health we can get, and 2 sources of GE points will come in handy. Especially on this difficulty

Of course, more health needs means more trading, which also dovetails nicely with diplomatic

I'll try to generate some more maps this weekend as well - but we have guests in town this weekend, and I may have do some picket-line duty as well. And then there's the work to be done in the garden. So I guess we'll see how much time I'm left with

 

[dr_s]

I stole workers in both the practice games I tried. In the first, I ended up not having metal and the AI (Julius Caesar) did, so RIP. In the second, I had WB'd copper into my BFC and it wasn't hard to survive; I eventually re-declared and eliminated that AI. So I think that worker stealing is viable if we have metal. That probably means we can't worker steal right away.

In both games I was able to chop/whip the Pyramids (had stone once, no stone the other time). Oracle/Stonehenge are right out, I think; the AIs get those very early. In my second game I also built the Great Library. I didn't try for HG, but you're right, that's a good wonder for this sort of game.

I'm praying we don't have creative neighbors. Fighting culture battles with creative AIs is not fun.

I don't really see a way to found religions, but I'm certainly open to ideas.

I don't think we'll have too much trouble getting to MM first, assuming we survive that long. Most of the AIs will probably be restricted to two or three cities at most. The big danger is getting a runaway civ, especially on the other continent.

 

[dojoboy]

Checking in. I assumed I'd get an email notification when this went green. Glad I peeked. I can't see us making any headway without warring early, The worker steal approach should depend on the neighbors, eh? If we go diplo, then we need to do whatever our immediate neighbors ask; religion, gifts, alliances, etc. Also, going for GS and bulb some techs may be good. And, a GE for the UN.

 

[mikeyredk]

Permanent Alliances guide I found this on the forums its from way back but helpful for us.

I don't think we will have copper… only iron… But the major concern is food!! I only count 38 %2

 

[dr_s]

In my test game, an AI got the oracle in 2360 BC. I don't think we can match that. Remember, we're competing against all civs, at deity level.

I made a couple test maps. Enjoy.

 

[mikeyredk]

Dr s I modded the save you uploaded to give it a more similar feel. BTW the saves are exactly the same don't know if you uploaded the wrong file. Also took out the copper that was in the BFC replaced it with iron to the north where i suspect for the worse it might be I hope its underneath us on the hill but…

 

[AlanH]

Hi Guys

I hope you don't mind, but I've asked Lazarillo to join your team. We found him, a misplaced Mac player, wandering around looking in at the Windows over at Smurkz.

 

[dojoboy]

Hi Guys

I hope you don't mind, but I've asked Lazarillo to join your team. We found him, a misplaced Mac player, wandering around looking in at the Windows over at Smurkz.

Sure, why not another member for Macfit Island.

 

[dr_s]

I fixed the duplicate files, so there should be two different saves in my previous post. Sorry!

 

[dr_s]

Played through one of the practice games I posted. Didn't win, but I came close enough that I'm convinced winning shouldn't be difficult. The main things that screwed me up were (a) forgetting for 99% of the game that permanent alliances were possible, and (b) playing for the wrong victory condition.

While I do think that a diplomatic victory might be possible, the surest path to victory in this game will be space race. All we need to do is make a PA with the number 1 or 2 civ. In my practice game I made a PA with the #2 civ (Mansa Musa) right at the end, and that was almost enough to pull out a win. If I had remembered earlier that PAs were possible, I think I could have easily made a PA with the #1 civ and won.

My initial tech path was fishing->masonry->wheel->BW->hunting->pottery->writing->alphabet. My builds were worker->workboat when available->finish worker->workboat->Pyramids. Finished the pyramids using only one chop. Oracle was built in about 1900 BC. I was first to alpha, but I held it while I teched to Literature for the GL. I think that's very important if we get the pyramids and are running Rep. Hanging Gardens was built around the same time I finished the GL; I think we will have to choose between these.

After Lit, I teched Drama, which is key because it allows for the building of the Globe Theater, which removes the happy cap for the rest of the game. (In a OCC you can build all the national wonders in your city.) Then I teched toward CS for Bureaucracy, which is also very important in a OCC.

Got DOW'd fairly early by Russia, but fought it off pretty easily since I had copper and the invasion force was 75% spearmen.

Missed Liberalism due to trading Education around and also very bad luck on popping non-Great Scientists. Founded Taoism with my first GS and spread it liberally. It's easy to get other civs to convert to your religion when they have only one or two cities.

Easily got to MM first and built the UN sometime during the 1600s. But I never got within 100 votes of diplomatic victory. It's pretty hard to organize so many different civs to vote for you. And after Liberalism gets around, many go free religion.

Gave in to lots of demands to keep civs happy. It shouldn't be too hard to get a PA with a good civ. Space race seems like the way to go to me.

 

[mikeyredk]

Well I played one game until till 500BC got both pyramids and oracle before 1700 BC got an Engineer before 700 BC using a specialist with the forge to pop machinery.

My tech path was like urs dr_s but i went Fishing->masonry->wheel->pottery->Myst->Meditation->priesthood->BW->IW->backfill (waiting for GE)

Build Warrior->WB->Warrior->WB->Worker->Pyramids->oracle->pyramids-> worker->Warrior->warrior->warrior (the reason for all the warriors was because everyone was going to war on the continent and didn't want to get dragged into it&#8230

We can build up some diplo points by going to war with people if they ask us to!

 

[dr_s]

I played out my other test game yesterday. Didn't win, but should have. I followed basically the same strategy I did before, only I did it a bit better, til around 1300 AD.

Was first to liberalism in about 700 AD and took Military Tradition so I could make defensive pacts. I ended up making a permanent alliance with Saladin in 1300 AD, which was a mistake. If I had chosen a better partner, I would have won, I think.

I attached a couple saves for your amusement. One is from 720 AD, one turn from liberalism. The second is 1300 AD, the turn I signed a PA with Saladin.

I'll have to play a game to try for the Oracle to see how that goes.

 

[lazarillo]

All,

I am new to this SGOTM thing. Just wanted to "sign in" & say "hi". Other than downloading the mod, is there anything else I need to do?

Thanks!

 

[mikeyredk]

Keep active and join in on the discussion

 

[peter grimes]

Downloading the mod is the first step

After that, try a test game. DrS posted two saves in this post

Play through a game, taking note of when the AI build wonders, which AI's declare war on who and when, which religions are founded when - really, it's important to keep note of all broad developments in all the test games so we, as a team, have an idea of the average 'threat' we are up against.

And don't get dismayed if your individual progress seems far behind those of other test games. I've never even played on this level, so when I see posts that say 'I'm pretty sure I could have won', I'm not dismayed - I'm enthusiastic that I'm going to learn tons

 

[dr_s]

Agree with the above, especially about making suggestions and participating in the discussion.

The big difference in this game isn't the level or the number of civs as much as the one city challenge. If you've never done a OCC, it's pretty different from a regular game. Its a big advantage for us over the other civs, because we can build all the national wonders and the usual prerequisites are gone (e.g. you can build Globe Theater as soon as you build a regular theater, and Oxford U as soon as you build a regular university). So once we get drama, happiness is never a problem. Health is a different matter, though. We need to be careful about how many forests we chop and what buildings we build. In my last game, I never built a forge, for example, because I didn't want the +1 .

 

[mikeyredk]

Wakey, Wakey SAVES AVAILABLE

We need to talk about who is going to go first