SGOTM 12 - Barley Demons

[AlanH]

BtS SGOTM 12 - Atonement

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 12 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 heavens split open, heat poured over the innocents, earth spew lava in anguish, light shone over the earth for a short moment. Then darkness, despair, suffering, torment. And death. If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Stalin had now become Death, the destroyer of worlds. And the people of Russia turned against him in disgust. Civil war broke out and the once glorious civilization shattered as a second wave of nuclear fire rained upon the land. Mankind is thrown back to the stone age, with only small bands of isolated stragglers wandering the plains in search of city sites free from pollution. The vast knowledge collected over the centuries is all but lost, with only fragments left for use. As the last piece of modern communication equipment fails, shocking news reveals that the former enemy civilizations were not wiped out as believed. The survivors managed to reach pockets of relative low radiation to re-found their capitals. And guess what? They have not forgotten. Furthermore, rumors are that Stalin survived as well, and who knows what technology he has access to?...

The good news is that you have managed to retain the knowledge of Ecology. The bad news is that the opponents have most certainly retained advanced knowledge as well, perhaps even nuclear technology.

You are Catherine, the leader of the new Russian civilization. You have to start all over again. The earth is covered in pollution, and all other civilizations are at war with you. You must make Atonement by clearing up ALL fallout, getting rid of Stalin, making peace with ALL other civilizations, and evacuating the earth.

Thanks for this scenario go to Erkon.

Timetable
In order to avoid clashing with the release of Civ5, the game will start on September 17.

The completion deadline will be December 20.

Game Settings

The Start:


Click for a bigger image.

• Speed: Normal
• Difficulty: Emperor - but be warned. It may play a little higher that this
• Map: Standard, cylindrical, cold, low water
• Opponents: The six civilizations from SGOTM10 (Churchill, De Gaulle, Mao Zedong, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Stalin)
• Victory condition: Only space victory
• Game Options: no random events, no barbarians, no city flipping from culture, no vassal states, no goody huts. Aggressive AI and rising seas are enabled.

Starting Conditions
Almost all of earth is covered by fallout. You are in contact with all opponents, you are at war with them, and they are upset that you have nuked them. The map is not the same as in SGOTM10. You are land connected to at least one of the AIs. The AI capitals are pre-settled. All biological units have died from exposure to radiation, except your settler. The fallout will not disappear by itself, and it is not possible to settle on fallout (due to a modified BUFFY)

Goals
To win the game:

• All fallout must be cleared
• Stalin must be defeated (dead)
• All other AIs must survive and be at peace with the player when space victory is achieved.
• Teams will not be penalized for events outside the team's control, such as:
  • one AI killing the other before the team has the opportunity to prevent it
  • one AI declares war on team after the launch
  • one AI launch a nuke after the launch ....etc.
  • any fallout that may appear on unreachable terrain does NOT need to be cleaned up.

The teams are trusted to fulfill the objectives to the best of their ability, and any AI related events that prevent the fulfillment of the criteria for winning shall be described and forwarded in a PM to Erkon or me for analysis.

Awards
Laurels will be awarded to up to three teams who accomplish the winning goals fastest (Ie by the earliest in-game dates).
Wooden spoons will go to the team who finishes the game (win or lose) with the lowest score.

Notes

• Versions
  This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using a customized HoF Mod 'BUFFY_SG12'. The installer for this special mod is available here. Unzip the downloaded file and run it to install BUFFY_SG12 into your ...\Beyond the Sword\Mods\ folder.
  
  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 BtS version 3.19 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.
  
  Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows software on their system.
  
• Rules and Procedures
  Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
  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.
  

Please wait until your team leader/administrator/scribe has reserved a couple of top posts for game admin information. Then post here to let your team know you have arrived.

Good luck .... You might need it

 

[ruff_hi]

Summary of rules thread ...
Rules Thread

• Erkon - victory condition, ancient start, entire map clean of pre-launch induced fallout
• Erkon - single victory condition (again), use of nukes, living opponents
• Erkon - cleaning up fallout caused by the player on the turn of launch (you need to clean it up)
• Erkon - rising seawaters (deferred) and radioactive dust
• Erkon - Manhattan project needed for nukes
• AlanH - standard fallout that will not disappear of its own accord
• Erkon - standard map, suggest Fractual for play testing, AI modifiers
• Erkon - fallout tiles in starting screenshot
• AlanH - don't need to clean up fallout on unreachable terrain
• AlanH - required mod and changes from BUFFY
• Erkon - killing stalin
• AlanH - a bunch of mod related questions
• Erkon - clarification on Global warming mechanics
• Erkon - biological units clarification
• Erkon - AI cheats, clears fallout without required tech

Other Links
Saving Tracking / Uploading location
Maintenance Thread

 

[Compromise]

Team Status (in order of check-in):

Turnplayers:
ruff_hi
Compromise
Twinkletoes89
Adlain
Sareln

Lurkers:
regoarrarr
sunrise089
athlete4life10
SevenSpirits
Selrahc
Jabah
Shoot the Moon
pocketbeetle
Aamelia
timmy827

 

[Compromise]

Checking in too.

Also, when checking in, let us know if you're planning to be a turnplayer. (I am.)

Also, any thoughts on how to playtest this?

 

[Twinkletoes89]

Checking in. I'm up for being a turn player at some point

 

[Adlain]

Checking in, I can try turnplaying, but I am only a monarch player at best. I defiantly will try to help out mapwise this time if wanted.

 

[regoarrarr]

Checking in as mostly a lurker

 

[regoarrarr]

So I guess the first thing to check out (either from picture grabbing or when we get the save is which of those tiles have fallout already on them. We can only settle on non-fallout squares, and things seem to be "urging" us to settle in place. It certainly seems like a good spot to me! My only other possible suggestion might be the tundra tile N-NE, which would pick up the seafood and be coastal, if that's a good thing (dunno)

So it seems to me that this will play out fairly similar to either a regular game, or an AW game, depending on how mad the other civs are with us (i.e. when we can sign peace)

It is Emperor, but "The AI capitals are pre-settled. All biological units have died from exposure to radiation, except your settler.". So from looking at Civ4HandicapInfo.xml, the AIs should start with Hunting and Archery, but whereas they would normally start with 2 "Defense" units (archers I assume) and 1 "Explore" unit (Scout?) my reading of the scenario is that they will not have anything but their starting city.

So I would expect them to build an archer first out of the gate, and I'd also expect that the AIs will be SEVERELY hampered by all the fallout and also by not going worker first. I'd expect that they have similarly "souped up" capitals but still.

Also note that we should get research bonuses for all the AI techs, since we're in contact with them. I'll list out next post what they are.


Tasks that might be useful for someone with some spare time:
1) If you load up a WB save on Emperor and remove all the AI starting units, what is their build order? What if you also surround their capitals with a lot of fallout?
2) What do typical "Standard, cylindrical, cold, low water" maps look like?
3) In our starting pic above, what tiles definitely do or do not have fallout? EDIT - see next post - the tiles that show a yield have no fallout, the tiles that have no yield have fallout
4) Possible opening plans?

 

[regoarrarr]

From the scenario our opponents are:
Churchill, De Gaulle, Mao Zedong, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Stalin

We're Catherine (Cre / Imp) btw, starting with Hunting and Mining

Churchill: Chm / Pro, Fishing, Mining
De Gaulle: Chm / Ind, Agriculture, Wheel
Mao Zedong: Pro / Exp, Agriculture, Mining
Roosevelt: Ind / Org, Agriculture, Fishing
Gandhi: Phi / Spi, Mining, Mysticism
Stalin: Agg / Ind, Hunting, Mining

So that's (of our opponents)

Fishing: 2
Mining: 4 (we already have it)
Wheel: 1
Agriculture: 3
Hunting: 1 (we already have it)
Mysticism: 1

My initial thoughts would be worker first and Bronze Working, and chop / whipping out 2-3 workers fast to start clearing fallout. Fallout takes 4 turns to scrub (we are on Normal speed - reference)

To figure out tech costs (reference):
1) Let's take Fishing which is base 40 beakers.

2) Difficulty Modifier from HandicapInfo.xml is 120. We have no teammates, so multiply 40 * 1.2 to get 48.

3) Standard Map from Civ4WorldInfo is 130, so 48 * 1.3 is 62.4 or 62 after flooring it.

4) Normal speed is 100 so it remains 62.

So technologies should cost (approximately) 1.56 of their base beakers. Bronze Working should be 120 * 1.2 * 1.3 or 187 beakers. We will probably work the 2/1/1 silks (note to previous post - the tiles that have yields displaying in the pic don't have fallout on them, the ones that show nothing are fallouted). So 8 palace, 1 center, 1 silks and 1 free beaker is 11 * 1.2 (pre-req bonus) or 13 bpt. So BW should take 15 turns. We'll be making 4 f-hpt so a worker should also take 15 turns.

That assumes settling in place, which seems right to me. Other options are N-NE like I mentioned before or maybe on to a plains hill, if there are any? With a plains hill we make 5 f-hpt so a worker only takes 12 turns to be built, though it looks like we'll waste 2 turns to get to a PH unless the tile 1S is plains (looks like a grass hill to me). So that's just a gain of 1 turn plus we lose 2 turns of science - probably not worth it. But needless to say the faster we get workers out, the faster we can work all the awesome tiles on our monster capital.

 

[regoarrarr]

I mean you all knew I was a thread spammer, right? right?

Does anybody know what "rising seas" means?

 

[Compromise]

Edit: Triple-ninja'd by regoarrarr! Can't say that's ever happened to me before.... What follows was uninformed by his posts.

I've downloaded the special Buffy mod for this game and loaded it up. I then threw in some fallout so I could see what it looks like.

But I can't really tell from the teaser screenshot where there is fallout and where there isn't. The initial save is due in two days though, so no real need to try to guess.

Big questions will be where to settle and what to build first.

We are land-connected to at least one other AI with whom we are at war. Presumably, all of their biological units were also "killed by radiation" so we probably won't see a wandering warrior immediately, but....

Since we (or at least I) can't clearly make out where the fallout is here, I think the one issue we can discuss to start with is whether to start with a warrior or a worker. A warrior is safer and lets us do some recon. A worker can start removing the fallout, but doesn't do us any good if it (or we) are wiped out immediately.

Maybe a test game would show how soon we're likely to be able to get peace?

We could always try for peace right away since we're in contact with everyone, but it's possible that the game was started wth a war declaration and nuclear strike, so we may be in an enforced state of war for a while.

Also, with all this fallout and rising seas enabled, how much coastal erosion are we likely to see?

I'd suggest that any of us who have time before Thursday could try generating a map based on the game settings and the layout of the peninsula that we can see now.

These settings are unusual enough that I think a bit of testing is called for before we jump into running turnsets.

 

[Compromise]

Good catch on the tile yields indicating no fallout. And a quick test shows that fallout replaces forest, so we know any forested tile is non-fallout.

 

[regoarrarr]

I mean you all knew I was a thread spammer, right? right?

Does anybody know what "rising seas" means?

Triple-ninja'd by regoarrarr! Can't say that's ever happened to me before...

And you just barely squeaked in before I QUADRUPLE ninja'd you

To answer my own question, a) be careful about searching for rising seas on civfanatics because you'll get a lot of the other teams' SGOTM 12 threads in the search results and b) from this thread, it appears

"If global warming melts the ice caps, the sea level will rise, turning coastland into coast. " and "If a desert tile next to a water tiles is hit by global warming it turns to a coast tile. "Next to" means any of the eight squares around the tile and it doesn't have to be the ocean, it can be an inland lake. City tiles can't be hit so it could turn a city into an island but it won't destroy it. "

Definitely agree with Compromise that a few test games are in order

 

[sunrise089]

I think I'd plant 1NE.

 

[regoarrarr]

I think I'd plant 1NE.

Why there over N-NE?

Does anyone know what happens if you have a coastal city and it gets "rising sea"-d?

Though I guess from my understanding it's only affected if a desert coastal see gets global warmed, so I guess your city can't get washed into the sea (though it could potentially become an island)

 

[sunrise089]

Why there over N-NE?

Does anyone know what happens if you have a coastal city and it gets "rising sea"-d?

Though I guess from my understanding it's only affected if a desert coastal see gets global warmed, so I guess your city can't get washed into the sea (though it could potentially become an island)

Keeps the rice, looses the fish, right?

Basically, I tend to prefer my outside-the-fat-cross food resources to be towards the enemy in a competitive game versus the AIs.

 

[ruff_hi]

re the pic ... check this thread for details of fall out.

There is also useful info in the rules thread that I will review and summarize later.

 

[pocketbeetle]

Checking in, nice to see lots of posting going on already.

Word of advice: reading the rules discussion thread is highly recommended.
I've tried to clip the useful posts by Erkon out of the kiddy spam, but there's still probably a few I've missed/overlooked.

Erkon describing the tiles in the screenshot:

From left to right, top to bottom

Desert fallout
Plains hills gold fallout
Grass cow fallout
Plains

Desert fallout
Grass forest
Plains hills gold fallout
Grass forest
Grass cow fallout

Plains forest
Grass fallout
Grass forest settler
Grass fallout
Plains hill fallout

Grass silk fallout
Grass silk forest
Plains hills fallout
Grass forest
Grass rice fallout

Plains hills fallout
Plains fallout
Plains hills forest
Grass hill fallout

Grass fallout

Note that in WorldBuilder if you add Fallout to a tile it removes other features such as trees, oases and ice. I assume this happens in-game with real fallout as well.

Yes.

There will be no global warming and no sea rise - at least it's extremely unlikely -, unless you write your own version of global warming. The Global Warming mod included in BULL could make it happen but you'd need massive amounts of unhealthiness - from buildings, bonus or power. A world covered in fallout won't even cause nuclear winter unless you put the fallout there by lauching massive amounts of nukes (In that case the fallout-free rest of the world would soon be covered in fallout too).

If a tile is selected for global warming, then it takes affect immediately. First the game decides if there will be global warming for the specific turn, and how many tiles that will be affected. The game picks these tiles at random, and not all tiles are affected by global warming.

Nukes will drive nuclear winter (the actual explosions, not the fallout). Global warming is driven by the combined impact from all cities (population unhealth, building unhealth, power usage).

However, the defense against these effects is significant, so you will probably not experience any effects at the end.

Erkon struggling to get Rising seas to work?

Riverside deserts with fallout do not become flood plains.


Overall, my initial take on this map is that it could be cramped, and that this heavy-on-resources peninsula may be our best spot.
Which would mean that settling in place (dead centre) is a bad idea.

2NW (Duh fallout) looks interesting, and saves the clams/cow/rice for a secondary backline city.

Edit:
Bleh, the more I look at it, the more N-NE seems like the only spot.
Wonder if there's any food to the West?

 

[regoarrarr]

The good news is that you have managed to retain the knowledge of Ecology. The bad news is that the opponents have most certainly retained advanced knowledge as well, perhaps even nuclear technology.

Emphasis mine.

Sounds like it might be more than just Stalin that has extra techs. We might be able to see things from playing with the slider and picking extra techs (to look at known civs bonus) once the save is out

 

[regoarrarr]

2NW (Duh fallout) looks interesting, and saves the clams/cow/rice for a secondary backline city.

Yeah and upon further review all the plains hills have fallout on them. I still favor in place I think