SGOTM 11 - klarius

[AlanH]

Welcome to your SGOTM 11 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 September 9th, at midnight, server local time.

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

You are Shaka of the Zulus, and your mission is to dominate the World. The world is standard sized, but crowded with 13 rivals grouped into several power blocks locked into mutual protection pacts. You are out in the cold.

All victory conditions are switched on, but the winning team will be the one that achieves a Domination victory earliest. Domination is defined for this game as 75% of world land plus coast, and 75% of world population.

Here's the start.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Zulu
Difficulty - Emperor
Opponents - 13: America, Arabia, China, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Ottomans, Russia, Scandinavia.
World - Standard, Continents, 60% water, 4 billion years old, temperate
Barbarians - Roaming

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:

- Domination requires 75% of world territory and 75% of world population.

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 Domination victory. The wooden spoons will go to the team with the lowest final Jason score, having completed the game.

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.

Enjoy your game

 

[Northern Pike]

Checking in.

I suppose the first question is, do we want to follow a Zulu-specific strategy using our Impis early in the game, or pursue normal fast expansion? On a continents map with 60% water, we might have a reasonable amount of land for peaceful settlement even with thirteen opponents.

BTW, I did PM Megalou about re-joining the team, but he hasn't responded.

 

[klarius]

Well, I'm just returning from a business trip to the USA, so am a bit tired right now.
I will also be away for the weekend, so I will not see the starting save right away.

I don't see any purpose to do anything with Impi early. If we would want an early war it would be archers.
But we first need to know more about the setup. I expect that we are surrounded by 3-4 AIs in locked alliance, so an early war would need a bit more troops than usual.
I think we should first look what we can get by peaceful expansion and at the same time gather intelligence.

For the first moves I think the scout should go north , just to close out that there is the land of milk and honey. From what we see the settler wants to go to the water anyway, no matter if it's fresh or salt. SE looks like the way to go to have cow and goats already in the 9 tiles.

We could do an ultra early granary right away, but I think we should rather build another scout and a warrior first, because we really need to know what's going on on our continent.

 

[Crakie]

I do not see an early war as an attractive option right now. It's a safe bet the alliances in place will not make it very profitable. Peaceful expansion after building an additional scout seems good to me.

If the need for war arises, I would prefer the Impi/horsemen combo.

We get crappy starting techs... alpha at minimum?

 

[Northern Pike]

alpha at minimum?

This leads to the question of whether we're interested in the Great Library. If there's only one locked alliance on our continent, we'll only be able to trade techs early in the game if we're completely at peace, which will reduce our strategic flexibility a lot. Our civ is definitely horrible from a research standpoint, and our starting position looks bad in that sense too. So the GLib does come into consideration.

 

[Ronald]

Check in. Had no time to look at the save or think about the game since I just came back from a business trip to Europe. Plan to develop some thoughts on Saturday.

 

[klarius]

Min research on a starting tech will never pay off.
We should research alpha at max.
Even if we find somebody with alpha early we cannot afford to buy it, if we haven't researched a big chunk of it.
But there is also still the chance that alpha will get us a local monopoly.
And we want alphabet as soon as possible. We want to get some curraghs out.
I don't think the Great Library is of benefit. We should rather look to get contact with the other continent(s) fast.
Then trading should give everything we could ever hope to get from the Library.

 

[Crakie]

Oops, I meant to say 'max' actually. Strange mistake; it's been ages since I researched ANY AA tech at min

I don't like the GL either. Strategically, I do not think we need it. And personally I feel it's a little bit like cheating. On Emperor, that is.

We might be able to turn the 'locked MPPs' into our advantage if we can get neighbouring 'blocks' to fight eachother while picking off one opponent at a time. I suspect Gyathaar set up the map to make that difficult though. We will probably face multiple fronts. I expect civs on overseas continents to be locked so when we get to them, we'll face multiple AIs (and their production) at once as well. The standard tactic of declaring fake wars will not be as effective I guess.

 

[Offa]

I'm checking in too.

I agree with alphabet at max, I think. After monarchy last game, I hope we can govern with republic this time.

PS: my internet connection at home died yesterday for some reason, and I had to come to work to post this, just to show you I know about the game. It does mean my contributions are going to be pretty minimal until I get a connection again. That should help you .

 

[Northern Pike]

Alphabet at max is fine with me.

my internet connection at home died yesterday for some reason

Assuming that Klarius is going to play the first round as usual, we won't be starting immediately, since he's away for the weekend. So you have some time to deal with your technical problems.

 

[Ronald]

The original announcement of the game said that our opponents are locked into alliances, the starting thread only said that they have mutual protection pacts.
I thought that alliance mean that they are sharing techs and wonders.
Protection pact would only mean if we declare war to one, some other would brought into the war.
That makes quite a difference.
Does anybody know how these alliances are really working?

 

[Northern Pike]

I thought that alliance mean that they are sharing techs and wonders.

Is this even possible? I think we can trust the first post in the thread--they have MPP agreements from the beginning of the game, and that's all. But confirmation from Alan would certainly be welcome.

 

[AlanH]

I was not even aware that alliances in C3C share techs and wonders. Do you have any references that describe this?

How would you even be able to tell? And, therefore, how important is it ... really?

 

[Ronald]

Probably I am again mixing up civ4 and Civ3

 

[klarius]

They don't share technologies in the CIV way, but they will trade like crazy.
We will be behind in technology for quite some time.
We have no good starting techs and the commerce in our capital is lousy until we can afford to work gems, which we cannot for quite some time (need food for expansion).

Since nobody wanted urgently to snatch the first round, I will play in the evening. I got it.
Decision what to build first will depend on the water in the south being fresh or salty. Science on alphabet and try to find some other AIs.

 

[klarius]

Played . Save

Build a scout, a warrior and a granary.
Met 3 civs, two of them are in locked alliance.
As expected, they traded around a lot starting techs, so it will take some effort to catch up.
We seem to have our own peninsula, but with pretty crappy land.

Turn log:

Turn 0 4000:
Move scout north. Nothing great.
Settler se. Salty water.
So now for the decision.
Planned build order: Scout-warrior-granary-settler
Move worker on cow.

Turn 1 3950:
Settle Zimbabwe -> scout.
100% alphabet.
Scout continues nw w. There is a 1-tile sweetwater lake.
We can get irrigation to the capital, but need a lousy hill town for that.
Worker roads.

Turn 4 3800:
Scouting.
Worker mines.

Turn 6 3700:
Scout->warrior.

Turn 8 3600:
Zimbabwe grows. Lux up.

Turn 9 3550:
Warrior-granary.
Warrior stays - lux down.

Turn 11 3450:
Culture expansion.
Worker roads BG.

Turn 12 3400:
Scouting. Meet India an China.
They both are up BW, masonry, alphabet, TW and CB.
We have pottery.
I buy alphabet from China for pottery 2gpt+5g.
Then I sell pottery to India for all their 58g.
No chance to afford another tech currently.
Go on writing 100%.
We will probably not get it first.
I invest full for a greater discount later (maybe be able to buy it at monopoly and sell it further).

Turn 13 3350:
India is blocking the choke where I met them.
I fortify the scout to do the same.

Turn 15 3250:
Zimbabwe grows again -> lux up

Turn 18 3100:
Meet Arabia at the choke (which is still blocked by India).
I could have met them already the turn before but didn't notice them, because they sport the same color as China.
They don't have warrior code (but everything else).
They are not in locked alliance with India and China (these 2 are allied).
I buy BW for WC + 2gpt + 8g.

Turn 20 3000:
Granary completes->settler.
Move worker to connect gems (and our second city).

Hand-off notes:
We could also build a curragh in 2 instead of a settler in 4 now. But please don't waste the shields by building a warrior now first. That's best done when we fall back to size 2.
I prefer the settler to generate some more gold soon.

Arabia has workers for sale, but we cannot afford any.
As usual we are a bit in debt. When we run out of gold I recommend to buy gold as usual.
We have no free gpt at sliders 0, so you will have to MM Zimbabwe to get free gpt (and MM back then). The second city should also fix soon.

You should also look for MM options now every turn. We can run 2 turns at +2 food and 2 at +3 food after the next growth. E.g. if you continue with the settler, you can work the coast for 2 turns after growth.

Our land isn't very good, but it seems we have plenty of it as long as the choke is blocked.

Some city planning:

Number 1 is there to provide a city with good commerce (lake and oysters) soon and to be able to share the cow.
Number 2 is the city necessary to get irrigation to Zimbabwe.
This does not really have to be the second city, just a reminder to not block this tile by other cities.

 

[klarius]

anybody out there to take the next turn set.

 

[AlanH]

lurker's comment: I see no statement of your team's playing order in your thread. Do you have one? It is normal to define a normal sequence of play so that players are aware that they are UP next, and can warn if they are likely to be unavailable. You *may* want to use the player order I listed, but that is purely alphabetical.

 

[Ronald]

I got it and will play tonight. Any specific suggestions?

 

[klarius]

Well, there will not be much happening.
We need to get a settler out and also continue scouting our peninsula.
Soon we should get some curraghs in the water as it looks like India will not give up blocking the choke.