SGOTM 07 - Misfits

AlanH · Apr 17, 2008

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

haphazard1 · Apr 17, 2008

Roster info for the Misfits team, version SGOTM7:

1310 AD (Turn 191)

JerichoHill
Thorrez (eliminated HC, prepped for overseas expeditions)
Mastiff_of_Ar (UP for the finish)
ChrisFromLux
ArcadicGamer
haphazard1 (in reserve if things drag out)

Lurking and scheming: namliaM

Lurking: Xevious

Withdrawn: marowaker

To start let's try a 24 hours "got it" period, then an additional 48 hours to play the set. Don't rush the turnsets, though -- allow time for team discussion.

haphazard1 · Apr 17, 2008

haphazard1 · Apr 17, 2008

Key discussions and planning posts:

namliaM's revised, improved worker plan, aiming for Pyramids + Great Lighthouse (and possibly a GE to rush the Great Library?), as of 2960 BC:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6765588&postcount=86

haphazard1 · Apr 17, 2008

Welcome, everyone, and thanks for giving me a few minutes to get the placeholder posts up first.

We should now have ArcadicGamer, ChrisFromLux, haphazard1, JerichoHill, marowaker, Mastiff_of_Ar, Thorrez, and Xevious on our team, and can get started figuring out how we are going to win this competition.

We have some team members returning from SGOTM6 (ArcadicGamer, ChrisFromLux, marowaker, and Mastiff_of_Ar), with the rest of us being new to the team.

There's been a fair bit of discussion already by PM -- maybe we can post a summary of that, especially for Thorrez and Xevious who have just recently joined us?

It's a pleasure to be playing together with all of you -- let's go get those Deity AI's!

ArcadicGamer · Apr 17, 2008

Before we start discussion about the game, I'd prepose 10 turns per playset, until later, where it may be more benefital to the team if we can play in rapid 5 turn sets. Alot can happen on diety in a short time. However, there is never any obligation to play a set, and if you want/need to be skipped please post ahead of time so we can finish in a timley manner.

We should as a team have a clear path ahead of us for what we aim to do before anyone plays a turn or starts their set. This aided us greatly in the last sgotm, and i'd like to see it continue. All input is always welcome, and its Diety so weird things will happen and weird things will work.

Greetings to all the new members, and glad to be back with all the old ones too. I'm sorry namilla (sp) couldnt be back this game. He'll be missed.

If you havent done so, play a few test games. It will prepare you better for what we can expect to do in this game.

We have been discussing strategy and our first moves via pm. It seems likely that a beeline to masonry and the pyramids is a viable first move. We all seem to agree on settlng in place. Builds are varied, but worker, warrior, warrior, mids, seems to give me the safest results in testgames.

Diplo seems to be the safest route to victory, though discussion about using our choko's and cats to clear away some neighboors seems like it could work to free our BFC of AI culture and possibly grabbing 1 or two more resources.

JerichoHill · Apr 17, 2008

In the PM threads, we've been fleshing out an opening strategy.

Our ideal VC will be diplomatic. Because of this VC, we will avoid founding a religion or attempting to. We'll avoid Great Prophets as well.

Our first benchmark is to build the Pyramids. The ability to switch to Hereditary Rule before learning Monarchy, along with later switching to Representation to run a specialist economy, is key to maximizing our chances.

Qin starts with fishing and mining. We know we will need Masonry, The Wheel, and Bronze Working as critical techs, and in that order. A question that needs to be resolved is whether we go for Fishing first while building a worker, or start directly with Masonry. I propose we do, so that we can go Worker, WB, WB, War, War, Mids.

But the overall goal of our first playsets is to build the Mids and revolt to Hereditary Rule. We're going to need happy faces.

After the Mids we can beeline to Alpha or get archery. I prefer Alpha. If we get invaded, so be it. We must gamble to win.

haphazard1 · Apr 17, 2008

ArcadicGamer said:
Before we start discussion about the game, I'd prepose 10 turns per playset, until later, where it may be more benefital to the team if we can play in rapid 5 turn sets. Alot can happen on diety in a short time. However, there is never any obligation to play a set, and if you want/need to be skipped please post ahead of time so we can finish in a timley manner.

Starting with 10 turn sets sounds good to me, although we'll have to see if we need to reduce it later. With only 1 city, turnsets should not take huge amounts of time to play even during wars.

And please try to let the team know in advance about needing skips. With 8 of us, it should not be too difficult to get someone to swap if needed, as long as we know ahead of time. Once we get started, I will keep an updated roster in post #2 above (the first placeholder).

ArcadicGamer said:
We should as a team have a clear path ahead of us for what we aim to do before anyone plays a turn or starts their set. This aided us greatly in the last sgotm, and i'd like to see it continue. All input is always welcome, and its Diety so weird things will happen and weird things will work.

Definitely need time for the team to provide input. Just because we can play the next turnset right away doesn't mean we should, unless there has already been discussion and agreement on what we want to do.

ArcadicGamer said:
If you havent done so, play a few test games. It will prepare you better for what we can expect to do in this game.

I've played several, but just the starting 70-100 turns, trying to game out getting the Pyramids. I'll try to fit in a longer test game this weekend.

ArcadicGamer said:
We have been discussing strategy and our first moves via pm. It seems likely that a beeline to masonry and the pyramids is a viable first move. We all seem to agree on settlng in place. Builds are varied, but worker, warrior, warrior, mids, seems to give me the safest results in testgames.

I think we have to fit in at least one workboat before starting the Mids. We should have time, and the boost to growth and commerce will be very valuable.

Also, the stone hill does not show a commerce for the river, so we will probably need to research The Wheel and build a road to hook it up. And if we need to research the Wheel, we should have time to build at least one WB.

ArcadicGamer said:
Diplo seems to be the safest route to victory, though discussion about using our choko's and cats to clear away some neighboors seems like it could work to free our BFC of AI culture and possibly grabbing 1 or two more resources.

If we get the Pyramids, we should be OK culturally against anything but a holy city, at least in our BFC.

JerichoHill said:
In the PM threads, we've been fleshing out an opening strategy.

Our ideal VC will be diplomatic. Because of this VC, we will avoid founding a religion or attempting to. We'll avoid Great Prophets as well.

I don't know if avoiding GrProph is necessary -- a settled GrProph is a nice thing to have. If we plan to use settled super specialists to pump up our city, hammers and cash are good things.

I don't think we will found any religions (we will have higher priorities for our beakers), but if we do - great! We don't have to adopt it, and if we run no state religion we still get holy city culture.

I don't think it will be an issue, but saying we'll avoid founding a religion seems a little strong.

JerichoHill said:
Our first benchmark is to build the Pyramids. The ability to switch to Hereditary Rule before learning Monarchy, along with later switching to Representation to run a specialist economy, is key to maximizing our chances.

It's a gamble, but one I agree is worth taking if we want a shot at winning. Early happiness (HR or just straight to Rep, depending on how much we need) and bonus research via SE will help us keep up with the AIs.

JerichoHill said:
Qin starts with fishing and mining.

Qin starts with Agri and Mining -- at least according to the intro post. If Qin really starts with fishing, I would recommend WB first, before a worker.

OK, you've covered this below.

JerichoHill said:
We know we will need Masonry, The Wheel, and Bronze Working as critical techs, and in that order. A question that needs to be resolved is whether we go for Fishing first while building a worker, or start directly with Masonry. I propose we do, so that we can go Worker, WB, WB, War, War, Mids.

OK, looks like the first Fishing was a typo, since you're talking about researching it. And the WBs after the Worker -- sounds good to me. I worry about defense, since building the Mids is going to take time even with heavy chopping. One axe and our warrior defense is done for.

JerichoHill said:
But the overall goal of our first playsets is to build the Mids and revolt to Hereditary Rule. We're going to need happy faces.

After the Mids we can beeline to Alpha or get archery. I prefer Alpha. If we get invaded, so be it. We must gamble to win.

Gambling -- even gambling big -- is one thing. But I don't know if gambling THAT big crosses the line into insanity. :crazyeye:

I think we will have to have archery. Alphabet is a long haul to have nothing but warriors on defense. If we get some copper within our BFC, then we will be OK through Alpha.

ArcadicGamer · Apr 18, 2008

Quoted from a PM about a my test game

Re: SGOTM7 - Test Map Results
1. Salad founded buddishm next door. He kept 3 tiles of my BFC the whole game and kept flipping my corn, which would starve me till i turned off research and put into culture.
--Lets hope that doesnt happen
2. Buddishm spread like wildfire on my landmass, except ghandi who became the continents whipping boy. This had 2 effects. 1. Everyone loved each other. 2. Everyone had that extra culture pressuring my borders.
--That's a random effect we dont want.
3. All other 5 religions were founded overseas, which kept them at a seemingly constant state of war.
--Helpful
4. I researched masonry asap while building warrior warrior worker, and even without stone i lost by 7 turns. I did not chop at all, and Egypt got them without stone. As long as another IND civ or a stone civ doesnt go for them, we will be golden for them imo.
--If you had chopped after hooking up the stone, I believe you would have gotten them. We are going to have to chop to ensure we get the Mids. Plus, the more wonders we have, the better we can withstand cultural pressure
5. Resources are scarce due to the small mapsize. I could only ever get to size 10, and i had corn, clams from trade and pigs from trade.
--As long as we keep the fat cross, we should be at size 20.

While my game had almost nothing in common resource and start-wise, i managed to get 5 DP's and eventualy PA'd with MM. I wanted to PA with Salad, but the turn before it was avalible he PA'd with Freddie. In fact of the 16 remaining civs, 6 were not in a PA @ 1800. I only suffered defeat 1 turn before building the UN, when Napoleon/Victoria DOW'd because they went Free Religion, and lost all the good diplo
--Well, that means the UN is an actual option and real possibility. Good to know!

The biggest issue i had wasnt with happy, but health to get past 10. We should activly look to trade our extra clam for that 1 health.

I should have reached the UN about 35 turns earlier, but the city popped a GS @ 2%. It was winnable with absolutly no clue of what i was really doing.

We should hit Alpha, unless
1. We have an aggressive neighboor
2. Religions (plural!) start mucking up our diplomacy (This is vanilla, religions spread awfuly fast and without missionaries.
3. We get attacked, and have to turn off research to upgrade our warriors.

Thorrez · Apr 18, 2008

Hi Guys

Just want to introduce myself and say thanks for having me

.

I have played every GOTM since GOTM10 (I think) but this will be my first SGOTM (or any S- game) so I will try to read up on some old threads to get myself prepared.

Question: Should we run test games, any good friend of world builder in the team?

Comments on diplo (on Immortal/Diety level):
My experience is that you need to focus on AI relations from day one, that mean not even opening borders with all of them and especially not trade around alpha to everyone (regardless of how juciy the iron working looks

. A crazy whipping boy is also always helpful so if Toku or Monte is in the game do no buissness with them and try to make everyone else hate them too.

Natually, no religion can be used.

We should set up a ruling list of how demands and offers from the AI should be treated. So that you don't have to make the decision on the fly. Example:

Alex demands any tech (except education): Yes
Toku wants to open borders: No
Monte wants us to stop trading with Gandi: No

And so on.

Comments?

ChrisFromLux · Apr 18, 2008

haphazard1 said:
Welcome, everyone, and thanks for giving me a few minutes to get the placeholder posts up first.

Well, posting your placeholders 36 minutes after the thread opened ... who could have beaten you to that

But first of all ...
Hi again, AG, MoA and maro, nice to win :rolleyes:

another game with you;

And a great Welcome to all new members.

ArcadicGamer said:
Before we start discussion about the game, I'd prepose 10 turns per playset, [...]

I would also like to suggest something: as often, the discussions between and during turnsets go over several pages, I think it would be a good idea if the player who is up posts a little summary on what his/our plans are for his set. That way, all other players would have some time to verify that no idea/comment passed unnoticed, and that we all agree on the next actions ...

ArcadicGamer said:
I'm sorry namilla (sp) couldnt be back this game. He'll be missed.

namliaM

ArcadicGamer said:
If you havent done so, play a few test games. It will prepare you better for what we can expect to do in this game.

Same as haphazard1 here: I've played a few starts, to finish the Mids, but I plan on playing a longer test-run over the W-E.

JerichoHill said:
Our ideal VC will be diplomatic. Because of this VC, we will avoid founding a religion or attempting to. We'll avoid Great Prophets as well.

haphazard1 said:
I don't know if avoiding GrProph is necessary -- a settled GrProph is a nice thing to have. If we plan to use settled super specialists to pump up our city, hammers and cash are good things.

I don't think we will found any religions (we will have higher priorities for our beakers), but if we do - great! We don't have to adopt it, and if we run no state religion we still get holy city culture.

JerichoHill (BTW: do you accept "JH" as shorter nickname?), could you please clarify this :confused:

. I have the same doubts as haphazard1 (short: "haph" accepted?). If we try to go for Diplomatic, I agree on having no State Religion; at least in the end, when trying to get votes. But even then, in the beginning of the game, we still can have the same religion as our neighbours, trying to please them so they turn their armies to someone else. I don't see why we should never have a religion.

As for founding one ... as haphazard1 pointed out already, I don't think we'll get one, as it's certainly no priority for us!

For GProphets, I suppose you want other GPeople to be able to bulb more interesting techs? Because a settled GProphet isn't bad, either ... or what are your plans for our GPeople?

JerichoHill said:
Qin starts with fishing and mining. We know we will need Masonry, The Wheel, and Bronze Working as critical techs, and in that order. A question that needs to be resolved is whether we go for Fishing first while building a worker, or start directly with Masonry. I propose we do, so that we can go Worker, WB, WB, War, War, Mids.

What about teching: Fishing, Masonry, The Wheel, BW
and building: start Worker (until Fishing), WB, WB, finish Worker (for faster production with netted Clams), Warrior, Warrior, Pyramids?

JerichoHill said:
After the Mids we can beeline to Alpha or get archery. I prefer Alpha. If we get invaded, so be it. We must gamble to win.

If we have Copper, I agree on beelining Alphabet. But if we don't, I think we have to go to Archery, to have a little bit of a chance. Still, if we get invaded early, even if we have Archers, I think the game will be over very fast ...

haphazard1 said:
Definitely need time for the team to provide input. Just because we can play the next turnset right away doesn't mean we should, unless there has already been discussion and agreement on what we want to do.

haphazard1 said:
If we get the Pyramids, we should be OK culturally against anything but a holy city, at least in our BFC.

Ahem, as we'll get the Pyramids

, we'll be culturally OK! Even against a Holy City! The Pyramids are +6 :culture:

, a Holy City 'only' +5 :culture:

. And we'll get +2 :culture:

for our capital for sure; the Holy City not necessarily ... So, no problem for our BFC, but other tiles depend on the distance, of course ...
And the culture for the Mids will double fast ...

ChrisFromLux · Apr 18, 2008

Thorrez said:
Question: Should we run test games, any good friend of world builder in the team?

Yes, you should

JerichoHill provided us with this test-map, but it's not 100% correct (e.g.: it's Pangaea, instead of Continents, and there are forests on the Stone and the Marble that shouldn't be there)

If no-one else provides another map, I'll do one for my test over the W-E ...

Thorrez said:
Comments on diplo (on Immortal/Diety level) [...] Natually, no religion can be used.

I still don't get this ... there's no penalty like "You had the wrong religion over the last 4000 years!". :confused:

Thorrez said:
We should set up a ruling list of how demands and offers from the AI should be treated. So that you don't have to make the decision on the fly.

Agree on that. That's one of the points I would like to see in the pre-turnset-summary I mentioned in my post above!

JerichoHill · Apr 18, 2008

Remember that if the AI comes to you with an offer, you can hit F4, go to the relationships screen, and check out how everyone views them, then you can hit out of that screen and make your decision.

Also, while we're going to have say, 10 turn turnsets, there is nothing wrong with stopping your turnset if a major decision comes up and you want input from the team

ChrisFromLux · Apr 18, 2008

JerichoHill said:
Also, while we're going to have say, 10 turn turnsets, there is nothing wrong with stopping your turnset if a major decision comes up and you want input from the team

True, but you cannot stop your turnset when the AI demands something/offers a trade; so our answer should be clear before playing ...

Xevious · Apr 18, 2008

ChrisFromLux said:
Well, posting your placeholders 36 minutes after the thread opened ... who could have beaten you to that

Actually I had my first post post half written when I noticed the blinking PM icon and read the message telling me not to post first. I'm just now getting back to it. :lol:

As I mentioned in the signup thread, I only played the first couple of C4 GOTM due to my machine not being up to snuff. I am now back, only have vanilla (but have applied the dll so I can play GOTM), and have played a few games (only one to completion). I'm looking to learn as much as I can from this game, so I expect I'll be asking a lot of questions that may seem (or are) obvious to everyone else. I played a few C3 SGOTM games, so I'm good with the format.

Anyway, it's good to be here and I look forward to playing SGOTM again.

haphazard1 · Apr 18, 2008

Xevious said:
Actually I had my first post post half written when I noticed the blinking PM icon and read the message telling me not to post first. I'm just now getting back to it.

Yes, Xevious sent me a PM within minutes of the thread opening. Glad he checked the blinking PM signal.

Xevious said:
As I mentioned in the signup thread, I only played the first couple of C4 GOTM due to my machine not being up to snuff. I am now back, only have vanilla (but have applied the dll so I can play GOTM), and have played a few games (only one to completion). I'm looking to learn as much as I can from this game, so I expect I'll be asking a lot of questions that may seem (or are) obvious to everyone else. I played a few C3 SGOTM games, so I'm good with the format.

Anyway, it's good to be here and I look forward to playing SGOTM again.

Welcome, Xevious, it's good to have you on the team. Feel free to ask as many questions as you like, however obvious it might seem -- you may spot something we've missed or remind us of something we forgot. I asked tons of questions when I first started; still do, in fact.

So many of the players here at Civ Fanatics are WAY beyond my modest skills, so there is much to be learned.

Like the name, btw. It's been years since I played a game, but I remember those solvalou fondly. Despite how frequently I lost them. :cry:

ChrisFromLux · Apr 18, 2008

Xevious said:
Actually I had my first post post half written when I noticed the blinking PM icon and read the message telling me not to post first. I'm just now getting back to it.

You were faster than his 36 minutes :eek:

. Not bad ...

Xevious said:
I'm looking to learn as much as I can from this game, so I expect I'll be asking a lot of questions that may seem (or are) obvious to everyone else.

haphazard1 said:
Feel free to ask as many questions as you like, however obvious it might seem -- you may spot something we've missed or remind us of something we forgot. I asked tons of questions when I first started; still do, in fact. So many of the players here at Civ Fanatics are WAY beyond my modest skills, so there is much to be learned.

True, don't be afraid to ask questions! I'll do the same (I already started with my religion-questions

), and I think we're all here to learn something new and to have a fun game!

And even if you should find a stupid question o ask, that we all find obvious, we will still have to think about how to answer it, which may lead to different answers, that can then be discussed again and may lead us to find another, better strategy/move/whatever ...

Mastiff_of_Ar · Apr 18, 2008

Mastiff reporting for duty! :salute:

Just so everyone knows, I'm off to Vegas for a week starting the 26th. I'll still be checking in, but won't have the ability to play.

Welcome new Misfits, and good to see the "old timers" back! :goodjob:

EDIT: Allentown! Dorney Park... Man I remember having some fun there.

Mastiff_of_Ar · Apr 18, 2008

Here's a question... If we see an AI settler out walking with a warrior, do we take a shot at whacking them?

haphazard1 · Apr 19, 2008

Mastiff_of_Ar said:
Here's a question... If we see an AI settler out walking with a warrior, do we take a shot at whacking them?

It would be tempting, Mastiff. But I don't think it would ever happen -- the Deity AI starts with 4 archers.

Not to mention the two settlers, 2 workers, and 2 scouts. And the extra free techs. And the bonuses to research and hammers. And the cheap unit maintenance and upgrades. And probably other things I am forgetting.

We might possibly get an opportunity for a worker steal. But I don't think doing so would be worth the risk of being wiped out in the ensuing war.

SGOTM 07 - Misfits

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