SGOTM 10 - FuzzyWuzzy Psycho Bunnies

[AlanH]

Welcome to your SGOTM 10 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 here, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

The starting saves will become available on the SGOTM Progress and Results page on May 7th, at midnight, server local time.

Thanks again to Gyathaar for coming up with the variant and developing the map.

You are Elizabeth of England, and your mission is simply to destroy the barbarians, who have evolved considerably in this game, having learnt a few tricks from their cousins in Civ4. They have advanced weaponry, they can build cities, and they have an uncanny capability to learn new technologies.

All victory conditions are switched on, but the winning team will be the one that achieves the destruction of the barbarian nation earliest.

Here's the start.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - England
Opponents - Six: Mayans, Byzantines, Dutch, Inca, Sumerians, Barbarians.
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Emperor
Landform - Mystery
Barbarians - Non-standard

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Game mods:
The game uses the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread, with the following modifications:

- Galleys can never enter ocean tiles.
- There are some unusual advanced/modified Barbarian units.
- The Barbarians have research capabilities, and can build cities and wonders.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included, as you can see from the starting screenshot. If you have played SGOTM 9 then you will be ready. Other players will need to download and unzip this small graphics mod pack. Details are provided in the SGOTM Reference Thread..

Please ensure that you have incuded the line: NoAIPatrol=0 in your conquests.ini text file.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared, skipping references to PtW or Vanilla versions of Civ3.

The GOTM Reference Thread.
The SGOTM Reference Thread.

Notes:

A. ONLY Conquests version 1.22 (C3C) is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - the laurels will be awarded for the fastest destruction of the Barbarian Nation. The wooden spoons will go to the team with the lowest final score.

C. You MUST play from the start file assigned to your team. 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.

Have fun

 

[Whomp]

Hi everyone! It seems we've been given a pretty food intensive start. What are we thinking about a for a lineup Coach Fuz?

 

[classical_hero]

Posting here to announce my arrival. I gotta love this name.

 

[gozpel]

Checking in.

Settle in place, build some scouting units and then a settler or two before granary.

As for a line-up, I'm willing to kick this off (as always)

 

[classical_hero]

That appears to be good.

 

[denyd]

Checking in also - Any thoughts on an early scouting curragh or 2 - they do cover twice the territory and the soon the bad boys can be found the sooner we'll be able to target them.

A couple of thoughts.

First, we should set up alliances with everyone against the Barbarians ASAP. It's the quickest death for the Barbarians that wins. That will also reduce the likelyhood of someone else declaring on us.

Secondly, I was thinking about research and it would seem writing - philosophy - map making might be the best choice for this game. I doubt that the Barbarians are located on our home island. We might consider the Great Lighthouse to speed up troop movement. I'm betting there's ocean tiles to be crossed to find the barbarians so we'll also need to reseach to Astronomy ASAP to get Caravels on the board. As early Golden Age would not be to our disadvantage so we should plan any wonder building accordingly.

 

[Whomp]

Two curraghs within the opening builds seems critical with the extra movement. I really like denyd's idea of creating a massive dogpile. We may have to gift techs to keep the AI at parity since my presumption is the barbs are alone on a massive contintent. Our AI friends will need to get there as well.

 

[CKS]

I'm here.

I agree with building some curraghs early to scout with. I also think that the great lighthouse will be worth building. We need to meet our potential friends quickly, and we need to find the barbs (or their probable location if we can't see them past the oceans). I, too, believe that we'll probably have to cross ocean to get to the barbarians, so we'll want to get to Astronomy ASAP.

I think we need to play a fast research game at first. If we are lucky and we can get to the barbs without astronomy, no harm done. If the barbs are alone on a far away continent, we'll also need to get to printing press quickly, so that we can give contact with to our friends so that we can all work together to wipe them out.

 

[Whomp]

Well this got me thinking more...an oddity. I have a feeling these barbs are going to be seriously overpowered so I decided to look at some of the conquest units thinking an all-star team of units would be created by the barbs.
Here are a few that could be used...

Ships
Elizabethan Sea Dog--enslavement and multiple attacks A/D/M 4/3/8
Privateers--enslavement A/D/M 3/3/6
arty
Fire cannon--bombard 8, range 3, rate of fire 1 and movement of 1
Grand battery-- bombard 12 range 1, rate of fire 2, movement of 1
Units
Daimyos-- A/D/M 11/11/2
Ninjas--stealth A/D/M 6/2/1

I'm sure there are many more I haven't mentioned. Am I thinking crazy here?

Second, will the Glighthouse be useful? It can move sea squares with galleys but will expire at Magnetism which is where we get our UU. Would we consider both Glighthouse and Magellan's? I know Magellan's is Navigation but it doesn't expire.

Last, if we have a scientific on our landmass. Does it make sense to keep them moving on science early and late MA take them to one city? Then we can gift them into the IA and take their tech.

 

[sanabas]

Checking in.

The fact galleys can't enter ocean, and the fact that if the barbs were reachable across the sea could make for a very quick game, suggests to me that the barbs are across the ocean, and unreachable until astronomy. I think the civ4 terra map has given AlanH & co evil ideas, and we have a similar map. We should get a curragh out to explore and meet our neighbours quickly, but apart from that, I think we need to go with bog-standard expand ASAP. It's only emperor, isn't it? In which case I see no reason to divert from writing-code-philo-republic at high speed. We might struggle to run the barb war in Republic, but if so, we can revolt to communism, I don't think bypassing republic to go monarchy the whole game is worth it.

Agree we want alliances with everyone else, even though I doubt they'll be a lot of help. We probably want to keep them near us on tech though, just in case they can do a bit. Once we start taking barb cities, we may want to gift them to our allies, so it gives them a beachhead, and so the barb counter-attack doesn't hurt us as much on war-weariness.

 

[denyd]

After a round-trip to San Diego (2+ hours driving), I had a chance to think about it and I agree with Sanabas that getting the Republic sling shot is a better idea. Research speed will be critical to a fast victory. We'll probably need to research to Magnetism to add Galleons and Man O' Wars as well as cavalry for the land combat.

We might find it useful to eliminate any neighbors (except the SCI ones) to reduce the need for homeland defense and to possibly generate a MGL or two. Having a couple of Armies would make any invasion a lot simpler.

As for the unique units, we should probably take a quick look at the Civilopedia for any new units. They normally get mentioned there.

 

[sanabas]

I just had a look at the civpedia, and I'm even more convinced we can't fight the barbs until at least astronomy. And that it will be a fun battle. The special units/wonders/govts would appear to be:

Barbarian great library: 20 shields, no tech required, doesn't expire. And since the barbs are locked into always war with everyone according to the signup thread, that means the barbs have contact with everyone from the start. 2 ways to try and circumvent that wonder: Make the city with the wonder our first target, and raze it. Or simply conquer/cripple the rest of the world, and make it us v the barbs.

Barb Cannon: 20 shields, no tech required, 0/8/1, with 9/3/3 bombard. They are going to hurt. Not too feasible to attack them with anything less than cavalry stacks, and even they will need heavy artillery support. Tank/bomber/arty sounds better, especially if we have a tech lead and are attacking only barb cannons & rifles, not infantry.

Pirate Ship: 2/1/9 privateer copy, with better bombard & movement, and with transport capacity. Available with astronomy.

Barbarism govt: according to civpedia, a direct copy of despotism. Pretty sure the unit descriptions automatically generate accurate stats, but I don't know if the govt descriptions do. So it could be anything.

I think that was all the new stuff.

And a thought from before as well: galleys can't enter the ocean, but presumably curraghs still can. So suicide curraghs may be able to find & map the barbs, even if it's impossible to land a unit there before astronomy.

 

[classical_hero]

By the looks of it w need to be researching as quickly as possible because the better troops we can get and sooner the easier it will be for us.

 

[CKS]

galleys can't enter the ocean, but presumably curraghs still can.

This is an interesting observation. If curraghs can go through the ocean, then the great lighthouse would give us a significant edge. We'd want to delay learning map making to build lots of curraghs - this fits in nicely with a republic slingshot - and then use the GLH to send them out barb hunting, using the extra movement and the sea-tile safety to find and watch the barbs.

I think that we want the GLH for sure. Not only does it give extra movement and sea-tile safety from sinking, but it protects boats against barb galleys (which won't usually attack boats on sea tiles) and it gives us trade over sea tiles. If we have nearby neighbors on other landmasses, being able to trade with them early on could be helpful. I don't know if Magellans is worth it, though. It will depend on how far we'll have to transport our troops.

 

[gozpel]

I agree to go for Republic, which means we have to expand accordingly in the beginning. All plans for MA is beyond us atm, good we discuss it though so we can sort that out when the time comes.

The start is what concerns me in every game first.

We have a couple of options, first to build 2 curraghs at normal pace, they'll be done in 10 turns. Then we can go for settler immediately.

Or we build a warrior right away (4t) and let the worker chop the gameforest which gives us a curragh (7t?). he can then irrigate the game and we get some food earlier. Settler then another worker should let us sort out roads and stuff.

I want an early warrior so we can plan city-placements.

6am and I need more coffee. I'll be back tonight my time and might start our first 10t then. Please continue throw out ideas.

 

[CKS]

Curragh, curragh, settler means we'd be sending out our first settler pretty much blind. I'm not really comfortable with that. I'd like to have a warrior to explore a bit first. The hill 3 SE looks reasonable for a second city from what we can see now, but what we see now isn't much.

 

[denyd]

Gentlemen (I don't think we've got any ladies on this team), you might want to check out the SGOTM 10 Maintenance Thread. It discusses some of the additional Barbarian goodies, like Barbarian Guards, they seem to have nasty stats and are probably generated by a minor wonder. Also the Technology Theives minor wonder that seems to act like the Great Library.

Also there's a big reminder to add the AIPatrol=1 flag and the Med Resource Pack.

(damn I lost my original edit to this one and it was brillant I think it went something like this)

My thoughts on the first turn set:
Settle London in place
Build order: warrior->curragh->settler->curragh
Research Writing at maximum aiming for Republic Slingshot
Worker to mine/road BG & Wheat

From what it looks like the Barbarians are being set up to be a real tough opponent that will probably require a combined arms (either cannons, rifles & cavalry or artillery, infantry & tanks) with a solid naval escort to have any success.

Any ideas on a roster line-up?

 

[gozpel]

I start the game by settling in place and send the worker to the game for chopping. We see some sheep a bit to the SSW.

London set to warrior in 4t, we need to scout our lands before curraghs. No one will win this game by getting their dingies out first.

Writing at max.

3900BC - Swap citizen from game to BG, to get another gold for the science for 2 turns.

3800BC - Bubba is trained and sent out to check our surroundings. London starts curragh.

3750BC - Forest is chopped and worker start irrigation. Let citizen work forest for a turn so curragh can be sent out next turn already.

3700BC - London produce Mayflower -> settler. I decided on the settler purely out of my way of playing, we need at least 2 cities before a granary...now and again I build up to 5 settlers before that, but I don't think the team will agree on that this time.

Not sure where to send the dingy, go north and see nothing of interest.

Bubba find a couple of small lakes inland and some fish in marshes. Plenty of food around here, mates.

3600BC - Bubba finds a floodplain E of London.

3600BC - We get this message:

I decide to skip the roads on the newly irrigated game and send the worker over to the wheat, we need to irrigate that ASAP. When the settler is done we need another worker right away.

3500BC - We find 2 borders last turn, lightblue to the north and pink east of us:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm10/FuzzyWuzzy_SG010_BC3500_01.SAV

 

[gozpel]

Some dots, blue needs to be settled first, then the SE red. They can borrow the wheat when London starts the granary.

 

[grahamiam]

cozy landmass you got there. should be interesting