SGOTM 08 - One Short Straw

[AlanH]

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 8 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 will be the first Beyond the Sword SGOTM. Thanks, Gyathaar

Following his recent honeymoon in the Far East, Gyathaar, aka Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire, is just Crazy About Wonders. He has decreed that he will win a glorious victory and that his total Wonder points per turn played will then be the envy of the world.

Suryavarman II is Expansive and Creative, with the Ballista Elephant to assist in acquiring Wonders he can't build himself, and the Baray to allow him to build the Hanging Gardens.

It is a Normal speed, Monarch difficulty game on a Standard map. All victory conditions are enabled.

The Objective
The winners will be the teams who achieve a Victory by any means, and who score the highest Wonder Points per Turn Played.

Five Wonder Points are awarded for each Wonder controlled by the Team, and are displayed as the 'xx' in "yy from Wonders (xx/310)" when you hover your mouse over your score in the game screen. 310 is the maximum Wonder Points score you can achieve if you control all Wonders and National Wonders.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.17, using HoF Mod 3.17.001.

If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in version 3.17 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

As there is no Mac version of BtS, Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows version on their system.

Schedule

• The Team threads will open shortly.
• The start files will be published on Friday, September 12.
• Please try to complete the game within three months of the start date.

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

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Map Parameters

• Playable Leader/Civ - Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire.
• Characteristics - Expansive and Creative, starts with Hunting and Mining
• Unique Unit - Ballista Elephant (War elephant)
• Unique Building - Baray (Aqueduct)
• Rivals - 7 AI civs
• World size - Standard
• Difficulty - Monarch
• Landform - Big and Small
• Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
• Game Speed - Normal
• Everything else - Default

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 highest Wonder Score per Turn Played, and the Wooden Spoons for the finishing team with the lowest final score.
  
• You can capture wonders, or build them yourself. Remember you cannot capture national wonders.
  A victory in turn 100 with 10 wonders controlled gets the same score as winning in turn 200 with 20 wonders..
  In BtS the max number of wonders is 62, including corp headquarters and holy city buildings, national wonders, palace and world wonders.
  
• 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

 

[Diamondeye]

Well team, I'm here and ready to rumble. I've PMed all of about an eventual team training a couple of days ago but it looks like TMIT is the only who has replied. From now I suggest we discuss it in here.

Also, I will get the HoF mod up asap - should be a couple of days or so. This means that I am not eligable to play the starting round (and frankly I believe it is better if one you do it since I am a Monarch player).

On a related note I am poor at whipping. And we're here to win, not to learn something. So I would like very clear instructions for whipping on turnsets I play.

Good to have the game rolling and crossing fingers for a victory!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A lot of my training to go emperor -----> immortal (I'm still in the process of making the jump but progress is promising now) was whip training, so maybe I can help. There's differing opinions on it though, so we'll have to see what the rest of the team wants.

More important is our strategy in this game. There are lots of ways to attain wonders. For example, if we achieved an ultra-early conquest win, it may be possible to win this challenge without BUILDING a single wonder. Alternatively, we could try to spam them all en route to space. It may also be worthwhile to take a chance at an AP diplo win, because if we set it up correctly (we get stonehenge, oracle or bulb theology, build AP) it's possible to win very, very early and of course all of those above are wonders . It would also let us neglect normally important things if we could get even 1 AI to friendly.

IMO AP win has the most potential here, but it's somewhat chancy. Conquest and domination are also highly viable. My theory is we want to end the game fast. 5 wonders is fine for example if we win by like 200 AD .

One way to mix it is to side with a warmonger, get him to friendly, and CAPTURE as many wonders as we missed as possible, then vote ourselves winner.

Just some thoughts - perhaps the practice games will be more telling.

 

[ungy]

Checking in and welcome to the new members on board--it's good to have the fresh energy.

Robert the Bruce and Mboza have not responded but hopefully they'll show up.

For those who are new to succession games, the basics of good teamplay are:

1. All major decisions are made with group input in the forum discussion. That would include tech path, war, wonders.

2. Read the discussion. This may sound obvious but there is nothing worse for team morale than someone picking up a save who didn't read what the last player wrote. You just can't know what's going on in a civ game just by looing at the save.
If RL gets in the way then by all means take a skip or a swap--that's never a problem.

3. If something unexpected comes up during your set and you don't know how to proceed--STOP. Better to pause for comments and reflection than make a hasty decision.

4. This is a SGOTM competition, so plan to spend longer on your sets than you would in a typical game. Micromanaging is expected--especially early on when there are few cities.

Ideally a team can be stronger than the strongest player (and for the new players that's not me) --a team that doesn't will be a disaster.


As for the current game, my overall impression is that the victory condition will be conquest but that the strategy will have to be modified somewhat to get the wonders. Big and small presumably (but not certainly) means astro.
A fastest finish conquest game would have the player lightbulb a bunch and probably build oracle (or possibly 'mids if stone). Not sure if this will be correct here tho.

What we need to get a handle on is the pace of AI wonder building --especially in a game where the player mops up the AI.

Anybody got any monarch saves in BTS --especially where you played a conquest/dom game? That might be a place to start.

 

[ungy]

IMO AP win has the most potential here, but it's somewhat chancy. Conquest and domination are also highly viable. My theory is we want to end the game fast. 5 wonders is fine for example if we win by like 200 AD .

actually the victory is based on number of wonders/number of turns.

If I remember correctly:

4000-1000 =40/yr=75

1000-0 = 25/yr =40

0-1000 = 20/yr =50

1000-1500 =10/yr =50

1500-1750 = 5/yr =50

I forget how it goes after that--can someone fill it in.

But if you win at 0BC at monarch (probably not possible with this map), 5 wonders is probably about it.
5/115 turns is pretty low.
Win at 1750 which is 265 turns you can easily have 30 (just a guess) so a much better score.

Shrines count as wonders so prophets are pretty good.
Corps do also but we may not get there.

 

[llib_rm]

checking in....

is there a practice game floating around?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not yet. We should do one IMO.

 

[Diamondeye]

I normally play on Monarch and the wonder dates differ alot. It depens extremely on the AIs. People such as Mehmed and Ramessess spam wonders while others almost never touch em. I suggest we play a training game with Sury, same settings as game. First of all we get a picture of when wonders come up on Monarch. Second we get the touch with the Khmer and learn their strengths and weaknesses.

Considering tactics: Worst case scenario is that there is civ overseas. This basically means no Conq nor Diplo pre-Astro, This means that we need either to win otherwise (Cultural? Domi if the other continent is small?). And as a consequence of that we need to get to Astro ASAP, because, granted we already own our own continent, we will basically win when we have Astro->Ships->Found and killed off rivals. Every turn counts.

So we need to get as many wonders up asap, while maintaining a high techpace. This seems to be contradict the religious path which grants few science buffs. Aesthetics would be a must, though, especially with Marble hooked up. I am thinking, let the AIs build SH (We are CRE), Oracle, AP, Shrines(?), other religious wonders (SM, UoS, SC), while we go GLib (perhaps GLH since it looks as Masonry and Sailing might be priorities), GW etc. It would be a plus to grab Prophet wonders for shrines, though. Angkor Wat might be worth tonnes here..!

 

[mdy]

Checking in.

One of my favourite strategies in off line games is to build all the wonders in the capital (except 1-2 of the earlier ones which are normally too difficult to get. I usually sacrifice the temple of Artemis and maybe the Great Lighthouse) and settle the GPs there. This does mean you expand slower in the early game, but it allows you to build up a very powerful city and a big tech lead so you can easily crush the AI in the middle game. A CS slingshot is very powerful with this strategy, as we have gold we might want to consider trying it?

I think we should let the AI build as many shrines for us as possible. Generating all the GP`s would be very difficult, and this would allow us to settle some of our GP`s.


Conquest/domination look like the most likley victory conditions, but I can`t see this competition being won by going for the earliest possible finish date regardless of whether we need astronomy or not.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Since the team is leaning against AP diplo (which could theoretically be won @ caravels), I am in the "knock some heads" party then. The question is, when? Do we expand to like 10ish cities, hole up and tech like crazy? Or do we get the axe rush going for early continent control? We can get extra wonders the first way, but the 2nd way might ultimately be faster, IF we can wage war effectively.

Remember that once the game is all but wrapped up, nothing is stopping us from spamming all nearby wonders before ending it if doing so improves our wonders/turn ratio.

 

[ungy]

Since the team is leaning against AP diplo (which could theoretically be won @ caravels), I am in the "knock some heads" party then. The question is, when? Do we expand to like 10ish cities, hole up and tech like crazy? Or do we get the axe rush going for early continent control? We can get extra wonders the first way, but the 2nd way might ultimately be faster, IF we can wage war effectively.

Remember that once the game is all but wrapped up, nothing is stopping us from spamming all nearby wonders before ending it if doing so improves our wonders/turn ratio.

well we don't need to make strategic decisions for a while.
I'd say first order of business is to see what the neighborhood looks like and who's around.
The tradeoff between an normal conquest game and this one is that ideally in a fast conquest game you don't research tech you don't need. So if you need astro, you lightbulb it and make do with the minimum in military tech and nothing else. Spam units and go. This will lead to very few wonders, however.

Another difference is that we may want to let some wonderspammers live peacefully with us in order to have them do our work for us.

As for when wonders get built at monarch, it obviously depends on the AI--but also on us. If we take them out too quickly, we won't get the normal wonder builds.

 

[ungy]

One of my favourite strategies in off line games is to build all the wonders in the capital (except 1-2 of the earlier ones which are normally too difficult to get. I usually sacrifice the temple of Artemis and the Great Lighthouse) and settle the GPs there. This does mean you expand slower in the early game, but it allows you to build up a very powerful city and a big tech lead so you can easily crush the AI in the middle game. A CS slingshot is very powerful with this strategy, as we have gold we might want to consider trying it?

I think we should let the AI build as many shrines for us as possible. Generating all the GP`s would be very difficult, and this would allow us to settle some of our GP`s.

Yes I enjoy those games as well--you might want to check out some of the lonely heart's club games--I think that's often a good strategy when isolated.

CS sling is a very intriguing possibility.

One advantage of the oracle is that we'll likely get a prophet or two whether we like it or not. Given that the AI will surely not get all the shrines built each prophet if we save it (may not be worth it) is a wonder.

 

[Diamondeye]

Exactly. We should keep whatever prophets we get our hands on.
Seeing the lay of the land is nice, but our first turnset has to play to 3000 BC as far as I've understood. Can we wait until 3000 BC to decide on our strategy? I am not sure :S

 

[mdy]

Seeing the lay of the land is nice, but our first turnset has to play to 3000 BC as far as I've understood. Can we wait until 3000 BC to decide on our strategy? I am not sure

The length of the turnsets is up to the team in a SGOTM, and we can always pause in the middle of a turnset if we need to. I agree that we will have to adjust our strategy to the map. For now we just need to agree on the first 1-2 techs and builds.

I have made a test map to try various opening out. One is :

Spoiler :

T13 animal husbandry
T15 worker
T19 fishing
T20 warrior
T25 mysticism
T28 workboat
T30 wheel
T39 bronze working
T45 Stonehenge
T47 warrior/writing
T49 library (1 chop)
T51 masonry
T52 grow size 6 hire 2 scientists
T56 settler (1 chop)
T64 maths
T67 meditation
T68 Great Wall
T69 settle Great prophet, the chances of this were just over 50%.
T70 priesthood
T74 2nd city builds worker, start settler.
T84 code of laws, civil service, oracle.

We can get 2 more settlers out in 2 turns. By contrast the AI`s had 3-6 citys at this point, so they would not be much bigger than us.

I didn`t keep any gold in reserve until I got the GP, but we might want to in case we get any random events.

 

[Diamondeye]

Looks good so you're at... what date on T84? 775 BC?

I am thinking, we play this test game through, note any wonders the AI builds and checks what AI builds it, then check their wonder-build stat in the spreadsheet so that we can get a good impression of not only when it was built in this game but when it is normally built (meaning that if Ramesses is in the test game wonder will be built faster than normal, so we might want to adjust the dates a bit if there are no wonderwhores in the real game).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Question - are we all playing a test game individually, and reporting wonder dates etc, or are we going to do a "dry run" in SG mode?

Either way has merit (SG will play out more like the real thing, but more games gives us a better picture of wonder dates), we could even try both.

 

[Diamondeye]

I won't be at my PC until saturday so I can't really join in on anything before then. I would be willing to go with both then though, since I think the picture of when wonders are built is extremely important.

PS: I am currently using BUG. This is not compatible with HOF. But when I play Multi (against someone without BUG) my BUG is automatically disabled, it seems. Does this means I do not need to reinstall and just load HOF as a mod? And what if I want Ffh as a mod as well?

 

[mdy]

Question - are we all playing a test game individually, and reporting wonder dates etc, or are we going to do a "dry run" in SG mode?

I think a "dry run" would take far to much time. I got the following dates for wonders in some test games:

Stonehenge: T79 T55 T46

Great Wall: T73 T70 T85

Oracle: T110 T88 T97

Great Lighthouse: T101 T113 T105

In 1 game the Hanging Gardens was built in 1 A.D Other than that no other wonders were built before then.

Does this means I do not need to reinstall and just load HOF as a mod? And what if I want Ffh as a mod as well?

You can put as many mods as you like in your mod folder, and then load whichever one you want to play by clicking on advanced, and then load a mod from the main menu.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What MDY says is true. However, do not attempt to run HOF with BUG as a standard install - make BUG another mod to be loaded, not one that starts automatically.

I tried the latter, and it results in crashes when you try to look at the trade screen, and -1 million (yes, seriously it was actually a bigger number than that by a little) gold per turn upon reloading.

I told rolo:

"I think I might strike".

 

[Diamondeye]

I think a "dry run" would take far to much time. I got the following dates for wonders in some test games:

Stonehenge: T79 T55 T46

Great Wall: T73 T70 T85

Oracle: T110 T88 T97

Great Lighthouse: T101 T113 T105

Looking right to me. Oracle seems to fall late imo. Looks as first game had no good wonder7relig monger?

What MDY says is true. However, do not attempt to run HOF with BUG as a standard install - make BUG another mod to be loaded, not one that starts automatically.

I tried the latter, and it results in crashes when you try to look at the trade screen, and -1 million (yes, seriously it was actually a bigger number than that by a little) gold per turn upon reloading.

I told rolo:

"I think I might strike".

Hmm. So if I have BUG as standard I need to do what???
Reinstall the entire civ and mods?