SGOTM 08 - XTeam

[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.

​

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

 

[leif erikson]

Thread Index

A good summary of the situation in this game by Frederiksberg in post 13

Is this our challenge? Killercane lays out a road for possible victory.

Fred lays out an analytical tool to help us figure out the timing of victory.

Shannon provides the basics for the tools we will need for this game.

Discussion on the starting location and the way forward.

Shannon's test game results with CS sling by 1160BC.

Killercane getting creative!

Shannon moves the scout to the Gold Hill, reveals...

Shannon's analysis of our options for settling our capitol.

A summary by Frederiksberg on tech path, trying to predict how to maximize score.

Shannon plays our first turn set and finds Shaka and a lot of terrain to settle.

Dot Map for the starting area?

Shannon provides a primer on random events in

Discussion of the benefits of Great Merchant versus Great Scientist.

Killercane plays our second turn set. and finishes it here.

An analysis of of Axe rushing Shaka.

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome back XTeam!!

And a special welcome to Killercane, who has decided to join in with our chaos...

Looks like an interesting one ahead.

I think that we have a few things to discuss.
Fred and I started talking about how we can try to ensure a way to better know the game rules so we play ahead a little better.
Also, if there are any suggestions that would help us play better as a team?
And, of course, the upcoming game.

Off to finish dinner...

 

[rrau]

checking in

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Hi Xteam!

Signing in for another fun SGOTM campaign.

I don't have much game time available right now, and I'm going to be taking a 2 week holiday between 13 - 27 September.

My initial comments about the game is: HAMMER TIME! hammers will be most important for our civ.

I don't know if there will be any sweet spots or break points in the wonders/turn formula for a normal game of civ. I'd start by assuming a quick finish with early and classical era wonders would work.

Victory type: I would think that religious victory may be a good avenue to pursue, should enable an early finish without diverting too many hammers away from wonder construction.

 

[killercane]

I blathered on a bit to Leif in pm about some initial thoughts.

-great prophet has the same value in this context as great engineer, as well as 2 great merchants, and the other things needed for corporate buildings. Music artist is free, merchant is free at economics, scientists are actually not as strong in this context.
-capturing the things the AI will definitely build (stonehenge, great wall, some shrines they will surely build relatively early) is going to be a function of troops required/wonder in terms of hammers. Obviously this is bad news if the wonders get spread amongst the AIs
-an offhanded guess is that going to Radio or thereabouts is best, and accomplish this by turn 250 at the very latest.
-fast research speed will lead to fast curassiers/airships to conquer needed wonders if we decided to research that far
-we can buy the heck out of wonders with Kremlin, especially cheaper ones missed and national wonders
-late engineers and prophets for islamic shrine, and the expensive wonders like redentor and rock and roll will be necessary

I thought about religious victory but Im unsure if our production will get high enough to bang out the needed wonders to make it worthwhile. Radio also offers UN which will be tricky with wars to gain wonders. What is the breakdown of wonders by era and the necessary beakers?

Assuming Radio, I think it will come down to acquiring the correct number of great people, 3-4 prophets and 2-3 engineers for the last few wonders. Music artist for jewelers, merchant for Sushi. There is not much post Radio besides 3 gorges and space elevator and the rocketry corporation is there?

 

[leif erikson]

I have been trying to figure out how to approach this game?

Each wonder is worth 5 points.. It is not cumulative over time, so it doesn't matter when we build, or claim , a wonder, it is still worth 5 points. The winner will be determined by the total wonder score divided by the number of turns played.

I have been trying to figure out if there is an "efficiency", or break point, where the maximum number of wonders are available by a certain time and after that time, the number of wonders available would produce a less "efficient" result. I made up a spreadsheet of all the wonders, what tech is required to build each one and what resource speeds the wonder's construction. I've been staring at it and it isn't getting me anywhere? I find it difficult to figure out the approximate date each will be built?

At Monarch, it doesn't seem that wonders will be the priority of an AI? So we should think about the issue of build versus capture? It would seem to me that a priority tech will be Astronomy in order for us to reach any civ who might build a wonder we would like across the seas.

I was thinking more in terms of domination for a victory condition as we may need to take a fairly large number of cities anyway to gain wonders. It is also probably the easiest to have control over? We should probably keep a log of wonders and where they are built so we know where to target.

How do we test play for this?

 

[Mad Professor]

Lurking around. On the road at the moment.

 

[rrau]

So far, I've lost out on wonders at this level trying to build them. Maybe war/capture is the way to go?

 

[killercane]

I have been trying to figure out how to approach this game?

Each wonder is worth 5 points.. It is not cumulative over time, so it doesn't matter when we build, or claim , a wonder, it is still worth 5 points. The winner will be determined by the total wonder score divided by the number of turns played.

I have been trying to figure out if there is an "efficiency", or break point, where the maximum number of wonders are available by a certain time and after that time, the number of wonders available would produce a less "efficient" result. I made up a spreadsheet of all the wonders, what tech is required to build each one and what resource speeds the wonder's construction. I've been staring at it and it isn't getting me anywhere? I find it difficult to figure out the approximate date each will be built?

At Monarch, it doesn't seem that wonders will be the priority of an AI? So we should think about the issue of build versus capture? It would seem to me that a priority tech will be Astronomy in order for us to reach any civ who might build a wonder we would like across the seas.

I was thinking more in terms of domination for a victory condition as we may need to take a fairly large number of cities anyway to gain wonders. It is also probably the easiest to have control over? We should probably keep a log of wonders and where they are built so we know where to target.

How do we test play for this?

Well we can look at the best scenarios and worst scenarios vis a vis Astronomy and the AIs.

What is the best scenario? Mansa nearby, and around a big massive continent. Trade away, and have someone with a high wonder build quotient in the XML build as many wonders as possible for us (any XMLers here?). We pick what we want, and kill Mansa and the chosen civ at the end. On the way we enjoy fast research and trading. It seems logical that the Oracle loving AIs have high wonder building potential and the ones with marble/stone (even if provided by us).

Worst is isolation or relative isolation, obviously. Eh.. I'll have to finish my thought later.

 

[leif erikson]

Lurking around. On the road at the moment.

Oh where, oh where is MP??

Is this a guess of where in Australia, or are we back to trying to figure out which continent???

 

[ShannonCT]

Checking in from vacation in Maine. I'll be back home in a few days to start thinking more about this game.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Checking in. Welcome to killercane!

Since long term planning was our Achilles Heel in the previous game I have tried to compile some thoughts for this discussion. We don't have much information so it's pretty general and there are more questions than answers....

The final goal is to maximize W(t)/t, where W(t) is the number of (controlled) Wonders at turn t.

So how should we time the victory? The optimal point, is, of course when the number W(t)/t is not increasing any more and has no prospect of doing so later. This most likely happens when the rate by which we aquire Wonders, R(t), goes below the average rate up to time, t, i.e. when R(t)<W(t)/t. In order to detect this moment we should regularly make predictions of how many Wonders we can aquire within the next 10-20 turns and calculate the predicted W(t+10)/(t+10) and W(t+20)/(t+20) to see if it drops.

This was the easy part, but it only tells us when to stop and it doesn't mean that our score will be any good at the time when we are forced to stop (if we can get a victory at that moment). In order to get a good score we must also make sure that W(t) grows fast. So how do we aquire Wonders? Basically we need hammers for this purpose and we can either invest them directly in the wonder or in military units that can capture the wonder. We also need beakers to get the techs that enable the Wonders we want to build. It seems that the best ratio of Hammers/Wonder is achieved by building the cheap Wonders and capturing the expensive ones. And it highlights the need for resources like Marble, Stone, Copper and Ivory that will give discounts plus the Heroic Epic to build our armies at a discount.

A late Wonder is around 5 times more expensive than an early Wonder while a late tech is around 100 times more expensive than an early tech. This indicates that hammers may be the limiting factor in the early game and beakers the limiting factor in the late game. Most likely this is also what will force us to end the game - when it takes too long to research the next tech that will enable a Wonder.

Obviously we will need to invest hammers in other things than Wonders. You can divide it into roughly 3 categories:

1. Hammers invested in more hammers/beakers (Settlers, workers, buildings)
2. Hammers invested in military units
3. Hammers invested in Wonders

My guess is that 1) will dominate the early game, 2) will be high in the mid-game and 3) will be increasing throughout the game. Since we need to devote many hammers for objective 1) we won’t be building that many early Wonders and our W(t)/t will be low initially. Then we will be catching up by building and capturing Wonders until the tech cost makes the Wonder acquisition rate too low to justify continuing the game.

When doing test games it will be interesting to try some “extreme” strategies to see if a single strategic element dominates in the optimal strategy. Thus it could be interesting to investigate a strategy of building as many Wonders ASAP aiming for a short game (Emphasis on objective 2). And a strategy of building a large military and capturing most of the Wonders (Emphasis on objective 3). It would also be nice to have a rough idea of how many hammers we should invest in objective 1 (e.g. how many cities to found) before we shift to producing mainly Wonders and military.

For a short game the Religious VC may be interesting while Domination seems more appropriate for the military game. Another interesting aspect to investigate is the trade off between Religious and Scientific paths - particularly with respect to Great People. If we want to get most of the Shrines we need a bunch of Prophets. On the other hand, fast teching is better done with Great Scientists for Academies and lightbulbing.

When we do test games I think it's important to know which strategy we want to test and also to keep track of the W(t)/t so that we get some idea of how it changes and when it might peak for different strategies.

When it comes to capturing Wonders it's convenient to capture cities that are close so we should think about manipulating the AI such that our neighbors build many - perhaps by giving them the necessary techs and/or discount resources.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I made up a spreadsheet of all the wonders, what tech is required to build each one and what resource speeds the wonder's construction. I've been staring at it and it isn't getting me anywhere?

Can you post this spreadsheet? Maybe we can figure out together how to use it?

What is the best scenario? Mansa nearby, and around a big massive continent. Trade away, and have someone with a high wonder build quotient in the XML build as many wonders as possible for us (any XMLers here?). We pick what we want, and kill Mansa and the chosen civ at the end. On the way we enjoy fast research and trading. It seems logical that the Oracle loving AIs have high wonder building potential and the ones with marble/stone (even if provided by us).

I think it's likely that a fast tech pace will prove essential to get a high score because high tech pace means that more Wonders are "enabled" in fewer turns. It may even be in our interest to feed techs to some of the AI to encourage them to build (expensive) Wonders that we plan to capture. The BtS Reference Guide contains some info regarding leaders and the likelihood that they will build Wonders.

 

[Mad Professor]

Oh where, oh where is MP??

Is this a guess of where in Australia, or are we back to trying to figure out which continent???

No - just where in Australia at the moment. Adelaide. Should be easy to find on a map if you want to. For a bigger challenge, try and find Balaklava, Orroroo, Hawker and Pt. Lincoln where I'll be from tomorrow over several days. Back to Melbourne next Thursday. You don't have to start guessing which continent until mid October

 

[Mad Professor]

Checking in. Welcome to killercane!

Since long term planning was our Achilles Heel in the previous game I have tried to compile some thoughts for this discussion. We don't have much information so it's pretty general and there are more questions than answers....

The final goal is to maximize W(t)/t, where W(t) is the number of (controlled) Wonders at turn t.

Some good throughts in your post Fred. Just as well I've done enough Physics to understand what you're talking about

Your point about hammers being possibly a limiting factor is valid, but we should investigate carefully the captured wonders thought. Why use our own hammers when we can use someone else's? On the hammers thing of course, the early, cheaper wonders are obviously better since they score just as well for us. I would think therefore that achieving an early victory would generally result in a higher W(t)/t than a later one. Generally.

So how should we time the victory? The optimal point, is, of course when the number W(t)/t is not increasing any more and has no prospect of doing so later. This most likely happens when the rate by which we aquire Wonders, R(t), goes below the average rate up to time, t, i.e. when R(t)<W(t)/t. In order to detect this moment we should regularly make predictions of how many Wonders we can aquire within the next 10-20 turns and calculate the predicted W(t+10)/(t+10) and W(t+20)/(t+20) to see if it drops.

Your discussion here assums we are in a position to control the timing of the victory. In order to be in that position we must get that point first. Early military victories require a big investment of hammers in military units, and an economy that is going to hell in a basket by the end of the game - not generally good for building wonders. Someone mentioned the religious victory as an option...?

Your comments about always being aware of what changes in W(t)/t are likely in the next 10-20 turns is a good one. Perhaps someone should put together a quick spreadsheet we can plug the timing of wonders into that graphs W(t)/t predictions for us?

 

[killercane]

Hammers are easy in the endgame, and with a set point we turn off research. What wonders are "should builds"?

IMO, we are off well with a watery start. Colossus, TGL, and ToA are all nice to haves early with what we can see. Normally Pyramids, Oracle, Library are the considerations... probably the same here if we can find stone.

Maybe taking Colossus w/ Oracle can be just as strong in terms of gold output and much easier to do, though I normally would hate the thought of taking MC. CS would be 50% of gold hill, palace, some coast tiles, and whatever other commerce we can drum up so...

CS~15 beakers initially
Colossus would need 15 seafood tiles to break even but comes earlier provided we have copper.

A lot is predicated on what our exploring workboat finds I guess. Lots of unknowns makes me want to say we play short turnsets and lots of discussion.

Getting the shrines for Budd, Hindu, Mono, and Theo are by conquering, Tao, Confu, and Islam might have to be built by us (or Christianity too after conquering. Tough to tell. Surely we need at least 3 prophets. A secondary city besides the capital and #1 wonder producer can probably be a prophet factory and make 3 prophets in the time required for fast victory (first half of the game).

 

[leif erikson]

Can you post this spreadsheet? Maybe we can figure out together how to use it?

It is attached below. I had to zip it as the .xls file extension isn't allowed for attachments. If you need it in another format, please let me know.

The spreadsheet is organized by listing the wonders in order of the techs as they appear in the tech tree. I was trying to figure out if there was an easy way of achieving:

So how should we time the victory? The optimal point, is, of course when the number W(t)/t is not increasing any more and has no prospect of doing so later. This most likely happens when the rate by which we aquire Wonders, R(t), goes below the average rate up to time, t, i.e. when R(t)<W(t)/t. In order to detect this moment we should regularly make predictions of how many Wonders we can acquire within the next 10-20 turns and calculate the predicted W(t+10)/(t+10) and W(t+20)/(t+20) to see if it drops.

I think it's likely that a fast tech pace will prove essential to get a high score because high tech pace means that more Wonders are "enabled" in fewer turns. It may even be in our interest to feed techs to some of the AI to encourage them to build (expensive) Wonders that we plan to capture. The BtS Reference Guide contains some info regarding leaders and the likelihood that they will build Wonders.

I agree with this, although testing may show us something different.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet, the religious shrines are listed. Each require a Great Prophet to build. SO another part of this game will be managing great people to come up with the ones needed, when we need them!

Your discussion here assumes we are in a position to control the timing of the victory. In order to be in that position we must get that point first. Early military victories require a big investment of hammers in military units, and an economy that is going to hell in a basket by the end of the game - not generally good for building wonders. Someone mentioned the religious victory as an option...?

I think we must figure out a way to be in the position of claiming victory when :

Most likely this is also what will force us to end the game - when it takes too long to research the next tech that will enable a Wonder.

We must be in control and be able to make things happen when we need them to happen!

Hammers are easy in the endgame, and with a set point we turn off research. What wonders are "should builds"?

I think we might also have to consider The Apostolic Palace and, if we get far enough, The United Nations must builds. I have had too many problems in games where some knucklehead who controlled the AP screwed up my plans by ending a war I needed to win. Or worse, gave back a city I took that had wonders in it that I needed, a real problem for us in this game should it happen.

We may consider a diplo win where we control enough population to make the vote happen, with Vassals if need be. That is if we get to Mass Media?

A lot is predicated on what our exploring workboat finds I guess. Lots of unknowns makes me want to say we play short turnsets and lots of discussion.

Another good point, we need to get out and recon the landscape. I will be important to have trading partners but also to see if Astronomy is needed, or not? Again, we must always be in a position to control our destiny...

Getting the shrines for Budd, Hindu, Mono, and Theo are by conquering, Tao, Confu, and Islam might have to be built by us (or Christianity too after conquering. Tough to tell. Surely we need at least 3 prophets. A secondary city besides the capital and #1 wonder producer can probably be a prophet factory and make 3 prophets in the time required for fast victory (first half of the game).

True enough. Not sure we will want to go up the religious leg of the tech tree with so much else to consider.

Another important factor will be managing out civics. For great people, we may need to run Caste? Need a food rich city for specialists, free of wonders...

A very interesting challenge, so much to consider...

EDIT - Thanks for checking in Shannon. Hope you are enjoying the Maine woods! Bet it is a bit chilly there this evening!! It sure is here.

 

[leif erikson]

Congratulation to Killer!!

Nice score in the HoF.

 

[killercane]

Congratulation to Killer!!

Nice score in the HoF.

Well thanks. It could have been a lot better but it gets boring after a while. Really from the milking experience that is where the rush to Communism/Kremlin ideas come from. Someone mentioned Domination as hard to achieve, but with Sushi, it is really not too difficult as your culture explodes.