SGOTM 11 - The Python Gang

[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

 

[Allanc]

First In!!

Leaving the name discussion aside.....

Starting position looks OK
We have 3 options now.

1.Settle where we are
2. move S
3. Move SE.

going NE would be foolish and all the other squares are mountains apart from the cow. And methinks setling on a cow is a bad move

I think Worker E onto mountain then Scout S and then either W or SE depending on what the worker uncovers.

Settling one square SE seems to be the best bet. Coast 6 grassland, at least 1 bonus and 1 cow. Plus mountains and theres hills past those mountains for production.


Standard map, 13 opponents. HMMMM this is gonna be crowded. We should be alright for tech parity then, but our problem is we cant go for an early knockout because of the pacts.

 

[fat-mans-reveng]

Fatty checking in.

I like the idea of settling 1 SE. The real question lies in whether that is fresh water or not. If it is, then we oughta send the worker to the cow so it can irrigate that for a nice food growth rate.

Looking at the surroundings, I think we can have a nice settler factory, which will be very important in such a crowded situation.

As Allan said, archers/swords are probably out of the question due to the early pacts. So, seems knights are where we're headed, and hopefully we can finish it by calvalry at the latest.

Another option is finding a nearby small pack of allies and trying to take them down. Don't know what will happen for sure.

Now to the issues of the team outside of the game. We have three things we need to do.

1. Agree on a team name
2. Agree on a team captain
3. Agree on a turn order.

There are plenty of team name suggestions in the sign up thread, and any new ones oughta be posted here. We need to decide on this one pretty fast, before AlanH's saves are final.

As for a team captain, I don't know how we oughta decide it, but perhaps the person who plays at the highest level would be a good candidate.

And finally, a turn order. The real question here is whether we should go based on our time zones or based on who is the best early game players. Personally, I'd like the strong starting players to take the first few turns, that way someone like me doesn't get us in a bind to start everything off.

Alright! Let's do this!

 

[Marsden]

I think 1 SE sounds good, we don't want the city against a mountain if possible, an enemy troop could park in striking distance and we might not be able to dislodge them because of the defensive bonus. I think worker to cow right away. Connecting one of the gems it a mid level priority. I think we're only starting with one content citizen, so use of the slider will be needed early, but those gems will help.

I'm betting on that being salt water, but 50/50, we'll find out when the settler walks SE. Worker still to the cow, if we can't irr, then we should mine, unless the cow is on BG, then just road.

I think scouty to the N mountain to look around first before anything else, just to see what's there. This is our expansionist traits main advantage and we need to use every little advantage we have.

Next, worker should road and mine the BG S of start, that will be our second citizens work space, we'll be producing 5 shields of 2 citizens. We need to concentrate on settlers, but maybe the scout can reveal a better factory location, allowing the capital to put out warriors, archers, and Impis. Let's hope there is iron and horses to be found.

Early contacts will be absolutly essential and I also recomend at least 1 or 2 more scouts. A curragh would certainly be in order, too. We need to find out who is allied to whom. Then, on the alliance issue, I have a foolhardy idea. If we can get the alliances fighting each other, maybe we can fill in the voids? Sounds to good to be possible, but if we can get ourselves to a sufficient strength to declare war on one, but not attack, then call in members of the other alliance, while still only defending ourselves, then after both alliances are completely engaged with each other selectively strick at certain targets of interest. Situation will have to develope to see if this is even remotely practical.

Oh, and on another note, I will be away this weekend. I'm very sorry, but it was a last minute thing, but I am very much looking forward to doing this, I'm just not sure how as I never played a Sgotm before. I take it we have until 10/9/06 to finish?

I don't have much opinion about the team name or who will be capt. and I don't know who would be the "better players" out of our group. But I will certainly discuss it with everyone, here or PM is good for me.

How about "The Pythons"? It's simple and can refer to more than one thing.

 

[fat-mans-reveng]

If this is anything like recent SGotM games, we'll be at this for well over a month.

Still yet to decide on a team name or a captain or turn order? Ugh...

If we just drop the New from New Team 2 I'll be ok with that.

Still waiting on three others to check in as well.

 

[classical_hero]

Checking in. What the possible team names? I like the Python Gang.

EDIT. Who should be our captain? Who besides me has experince in these games?

I would say that we move southeast and settler there.

 

[Allanc]

The Python Gang sounds good to me.

An early fight will be risky but I think it may be nessecary. Baring i mind its continents and the map is very crowded we will be lucky to get horses and iron in a peaceful expansion. Therefore i think early barracks plus military build up may be in order.
Also we have a decent early UU. Non of our opponents do, apart from Eygpt and theres is rubbish. SO stacks of impis and archers should be able to beat most early armys.

 

[JammerUno]

As for captain and teamname i'm pretty much alright with anything.

I'l say move the worker over the mountain E,
the scoult SW then W, moving only one sq seems a waste.
settling S on the bonus grassland would be nice, since then we can get the +10 shields from the forest (in stead of settling on it),

Building scouts seems a waste when we could be building impi's but the risk of getting a golden age too early is always there with impi's.

We might want to consider rapid explansion with a small militairy and when peaceful expansion is no option hitting our golden age. If we can, fighting against opponents who don't have UU at that time.

It seems to me we can time our GA pretty much as we choose if we are the ones declaring war, parking some impi's on a mountain in their territory.

Whatever we choose do, mistiming our GA would be a major mistake.

 

[AlanH]

Have you guys decided on "The Python Gang", then? I want to settle the name asap. Re. experience, Own and classical_hero have played SGOTMs before.

 

[Allanc]

yesh just make it The Python Gang.

and about turning one alliance onto another - this should work. We only need to pay for one civ to join in on our side and the whole group will go.
It says "several" power groups. So this means more than 2 and suggest around 4 or 5. If this was a 'pegelo then i wouldn expect each group to be on an island but its continents so I would expect more than one power group on our land mass.
Id prefer scouts to impis for exploring as this means we dont spread our military about.

 

[JammerUno]

Apart from the starting position we might want to start discussing overall warring/(unit)building strats.

I'm a great fan of bombarding against superior numbers but depending on the progress we might not get past regular cannons in the tech tree. Keeping units alive is great, but investing in artillery of any kind might be a waste if they can never be upgraded past canons.

Also we should adopt a uniform strat for building improvements; do we build graneries? Temples? Libs? I know alot of this depends on the situation but it is still useful to plan it well in advance.

 

[Own]

Own checking in.

 

[Marsden]

It's hard to say with no intel on the enemy, but I would prefer to only build troops, settlers and workers and capture the Temple of Artemis. I'm sure Gyathaar isn't going to make it that easy, but I don't think we should be overly concerned with anything but domination, which means armies and towns covering 75% of the land. I'm sure because of the upped percentage and the continents map we will need a navy.

Remember there is no canabalism in the Zulu Royal Navy!

I am a memeber of the Python gang!

I think it's between either classical_hero and Own to be captain. I'm good with anyone, I'm just going by their experience. I'll be a minion.

 

[fat-mans-reveng]

Good, we have a name!

Now, to the lesser issues

I'm a huge fan of swords, and I've never had a good experience with horsies, so I'm saying our first crusade oughta be with swords against a nearby smaller block if possible.

I'd say our goal oughta be to dwindle it down to two blocks, send them to war with eachother, and then come in and take down both sides once the time is right. I don't know how far that will take us into the tech tree, so I'm thinking this may go all the way to modern armors, but I hope it doesn't. I think we need to do our best to finish this by calvalry.

With that in mind, any ideas on turn order? I don't know who is most comfortable with the start, but whoever it is should take first turn.

 

[Marsden]

I agree about the swords, but no iron or horses will decide more than prefrences. At least we have a fast defender to protect our offense, which makes horses more useful, but again swords have a higher attack. I think a mix of the three would be best, but we might be stuck with archers if no resources. Impis aren't good attackers, but they are good raiders, grabbing slaves, disrupting trade, and so on.

 

[fat-mans-reveng]

I agree about the swords, but no iron or horses will decide more than prefrences. At least we have a fast defender to protect our offense, which makes horses more useful, but again swords have a higher attack. I think a mix of the three would be best, but we might be stuck with archers if no resources. Impis aren't good attackers, but they are good raiders, grabbing slaves, disrupting trade, and so on.

Using Impi is definitely a double bladed sword here. One of my favorite tactics with spearmen is to completely ruin a neighboring civ's early game by moving in with a bunch of spearmen and simply pillaging all their improvements until that civ can take down all the spearmen, or until I've gained enough of an upper hand on the civ that I can eliminate them with ease. The Impi's two move speed can really help with this tactic. The down side is that if we decide to do this, we trigger our golden age too early, and we can't take full advantage of it.

I steer away from doing this, seeing as a golden age should never be wasted as this one would be. But it's still a thought.

The only other way I could see using the Impi is by using just a couple to go and enslave some workers from other civs and retreating quickly again, hoping to never be attacked, and if we are, then hoping we don't win.

My opinion is that we don't use the Impi at all though. It means that throughout the Ancient Age we will not have a unit with defence higher than 1, but it also means that we will not be triggering a golden age too early...

 

[classical_hero]

I will put my hand up for being captain, unless someone objects.

 

[Allanc]

right we need an order.
If classical Hero wants to be captain then let him, i have no objections and hes probably the best man for the job.
In that case I propose the order to be the same as the checking in order cept with Classical Hero first as captain.
Which Means......

Classical Hero
AllanC
FMR
Marsden
Jamero Uno
Own

Althugh if anyone fancys themselves as a start specialist then by al means step up.

 

[JammerUno]

I think not using impi's is not a real option. We should try to time the GA just as we start our first war so we can make it a quick and deceisive victory over one of the 13 opponents. After that we could make peace with the alliance and concentrate on another target.

Taking down one civ from an alliance at a time might be preferable before railroad, since the allies can't aid with troops instantly we will have some time to crush one of theirs and then attempt peace.

aside from that I have a though about tech: if we cause a long drawn out war on our continent it and it's civs will be lagging behind on tech when astronomy arrives. This could be an dis- or advantage depending on who makes the first intercontinental contact.

 

[Marsden]

right we need an order.
If classical Hero wants to be captain then let him, i have no objections and hes probably the best man for the job.
In that case I propose the order to be the same as the checking in order cept with Classical Hero first as captain.
Which Means......

Classical Hero
AllanC
FMR
Marsden
Jamero Uno
Own

Althugh if anyone fancys themselves as a start specialist then by al means
step up.

Sounds good all around!

How many turns do we play in sequence? Is it 10 or 20? I missed that. Plus, I'm sorry to say I will be away until Tuesday 09/12/06. I don't know if that will interfere with the turn order, but if you want, skip me this round or put me to the end of the line. I might be able to pick it up late monday, but I'm not counting on it. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, I expect this will be the only time I won't be available.