SGOTM 12 - Regular

[AlanH]

Welcome to your 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 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 February 9th, at midnight, server local time.

This time we have an archipelago on a standard size map with 30 rivals (yes, that's every Civ in the book, so you know who they are), and everyone is destined to remain feudal for the entire game. You start with a settler and a worker as usual, and the AI all start with two settlers a lots of Deity units .... also as usual. But since there's not a lot of room for expansion, no one can build any more settlers.

Seafaring and Scientific Theodora finds herself in a world with 30 other civilizations. She and her Dromons are on a mission to bring civilized diplomacy to the masses ... whether they like it or not. The winners of this game will be the succession team that reaches a Diplomatic Victory by the earliest game date. All victory conditions are enabled, but only a UN vote in your favour will bring the laurels. Thanks once more to Gyathaar for the concept and map.

Here's the start.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Byzantine
Difficulty - Deity
Opponents - 30
World - Standard, Archipelago, 70% water, 4 billion years old, warm and wet
Barbarians - Roaming

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

Knowing Gyathaar as we do, the map may have been tweaked

Game mods:
We shall use the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread, with the following changes specific to this game:

- All Civs start in Feudalism, and cannot adopt another form of government.
- No Civ can build Settlers.
- As city counts are limited, all Civs get ten extra free units in Feudalism.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included. If you have played previous C3C SGOTMs 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 included the line: NoAIPatrol=0 in your conquests.ini text file:

A 'fix' for the Barbarians!:
As many of you know, the barbarians in C3C are 'broken'. This can be fixed by going to your \Conquest\ folder, and opening your Conquests.ini file, and adding a line noaipatrol=0 to the file. Whilst we cannot force people to do this, it will make the game a bit more interesting if you do. If you are not comfortable editing your .ini file, you can download a utility here to do it automatically.

Players running Civ3 Complete for Macintosh should contact me if they have any problems with the mod. If they are not running the Rev A version they will need to use FileValet to compress their saves for upload, and they may also need to use it to 'clean' downloaded saves before playing.

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 set.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - the laurels will be awarded for the fastest Diplomatic victory. The wooden spoons will go to the team with the lowest final Jason score, having completed the game one way or another.

C. 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

 

[Wardancer]

First post

I r uber l33t hax0r noobie

Mwahahahahahaha

CHARIOTS FOR THE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[PaperBeetle]

You'll have to forgive him, team. He's been too long in the Dawn of War community.

 

[Wardancer]

STFU nub prepare to be pwned.

 

[archphoenix]

archphoenix sign up.
should we need to discuss whether settler move 1se to get a more productive capital?

 

[socralynnek]

boah, just a few minutes away and 100 posts already...

signing in!

 

[socralynnek]

So, now on to the game...

My thoughts:

The team already knows how to play in Feudalism, that might come in handy...(although we can't make Settler spamming)

As we can't build another city ourselves, the placement of the city is crucial.

It plain has to be on the coast (unless we directly see another civ with a coastal city).

I see two options: Settling in place or settling SE.
Depends on what the worker reveals.
I vote for worker S to see what we have. And it can then start irrigating the cow directly ( I am pretty sure, PaperBeetle will provide a nice little sheet for the first 540 turns...)

So, I think, first player should move worker S, then stop and post a screenshot. Then we make a whole lot of calculations and then we decide.

Apropos decide, we need to decide who's the leader of the team. I vote for PaperBeetle, I am pretty sure he'd do a good job (and probably is the best player of us)

 

[Wardancer]

I agree settler should go South East.

I also think the first goal should be to get city to size 12 and fully improved. Should allow us to get approx 25 shields and 22 net commerce.

To me this would suggest we need an early granary to spam workers who would do the improvements and then be added back up to get us up to size 12.

To do this efficiently is a huge headache. Luckily our star player PaperBeetle is already spreadsheeting the possibilities

I'll let him report his findings.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Indeed I have started a spreadsheet, but I won't have anything to show from it until the weekend.

I agree that the mid-term goal must be getting to pop 12, but I'm not sure how or where. It is, as you say, a huge headache. We have so much stuff and so many options, how do we find the optimal order of things?

City location... either in place or 1SE are possible. Surely there are no other sensible sites. In place has the advantage of getting rather more commerce in the long term. I assume this town will want to use the Copernicus/Newton combo, so extra commerce here pays off well. It also gets more commerce in the short term, with the ivory hooking immediately, and the city tile generating an extra 2gpt.
1SE will have better shields, but passes up 3 coast in favour of 3 unknown tiles to the SE. They could be deserts for instance. By the way, does anyone know for sure whether that is forest or jungle to our south? I use Warpstorm's terrain, so I'm not too familiar with the difference between the original forest and jungle graphics.

Moving the worker as socralynnek suggests could give us a better view in that direction, but we'd still be fog-gazing, unless the tiles in question are hills or mountains. Also, if we are going to settle 1SE, the worker might consider staying behind to road the ivory. And for the fastest growth I think we would start by working the moo in the fog to the east... +4fpt would have us growing in 5 turns, then the plains moo gets used at pop 2 to make +5fpt.
On the other hand, if we settle in place, then worker S is exactly the right move as we use the plains moo at pop 1. So with the worker move, we are damned if we do and damned if don't!

Granary... Where do we get Pots from? What is the price of self-researching it on deity? I wonder if we need to build one at all. The three moos will get us 3-turn growth, even without being irrigated. As Wardancer says, growth is best done by running a worker factory at a size which gets the fastest growth, and then adding them all (or almost all - maybe we need to build a road towards our second and third towns) back as soon as they have done their improvements.

When we are at size 12, we will want all the forests still standing, or replanted, and all other tiles mined... there is so much food here it is hard not to have a surplus. So do we only mine from the start, or do we irrigate at first and then change to mines later? Watering all three moos does get +10fpt after all...

 

[archphoenix]

after read, then this is the option.
4000BC worker east, settler se;
3950BC worker se, arrive fogged cattle and will find the 3 more tile. if good, settler build city or else return start location
since 3 cattle so ganary don't need before pop 7,
so I roughly estimate buld order:
ship->ship->axe(mp)->worker->colossus->ganary.
the ships will get pot when we engage write.

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

Just checking in. As you'll be aware from last time around I'll have nothing useful to contribute but I might ask a couple of questions anyway:

1) Will our long term strategy be to conquer all but 2 civs, ally with one against the other, declare war and then hold a vote?

2) If you're in a MPP with another civ are they guaranteed to vote for you?

 

[socralynnek]

archphoenix, what would taht worker build east?
Otherwise moving S or even staying in place makes more sense.

PaperBeetler: Tha tiles S-S and S-SE are definitely Jungle. To the west we have forests.

I guess we don't have achance to get the Colossus. So many civs which can't build Settlers. Someone will surely start The Colossus I think.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Just checking in. As you'll be aware from last time around I'll have nothing useful to contribute but I might ask a couple of questions anyway:

1) Will our long term strategy be to conquer all but 2 civs, ally with one against the other, declare war and then hold a vote?

2) If you're in a MPP with another civ are they guaranteed to vote for you?

Questions are a very useful thing to contribute. Well, except questions like "should I get the iPod or the iRiver?" or "what colour is red?"

1) I would imagine our idealised long term strategy is to conquer all but the scientific civs (unless another civ happens to emerge as a viable research partner), gift them all up during the interturn that we hit the modern, obtain Fission through exceedingly cunning trading, dow the largest opponent, ally and MPP the others, switch our palace prebuild over to UN, only then let the interturn end, hold the vote, win.
I tried exactly this strategy in GOTM63, and have written full spoilers on my game if you are in need of a cure for insomnia. So what did I take away from the experience?
- Trying to buy Fission at monopoly price is crushingly expensive. I was charged over double the beaker cost. That is why the more scientific guys we can keep around the better; we have a better chance at getting more 'copies' of Fission out there during that crucial interturn.
- Tech tricking and other similar con-artistry may reduce the value of our gpt, but as long as we don't break any war deals directly we should still be able to get the alliances and MPPs at the end for fair price, albeit they may not accept the payment on credit. But it's difficult to be sure of such things. I would welcome other people's experiences on this issue.

2) I don't think so, no. After all, a third party could be MPPed with both UN candidates. They are guaranteed to not vote for a civ they are at war with. Alliances and MPPs both give significant attitudes boosts, so although the votes aren't guaranteed, they are highly likely.

 

[madviking]

Cheqing in.

@Paperbeetle- Well, that plan would work if we make it that far.
====================
Looks like a bovine poking its head from the s-e-e, mmm... :yum:

 

[madviking]

Saves are out... It looks like it'll be best to settle in place.
(PS- I;m a lowly emperor player, not diety, so except some screw ups and stuff...)

 

[socralynnek]

Welcome to our team madviking!

When archphoenix and Taxpayer's Money joined us last game, they said they would be Regent players...now look, archphoenix has an Eptathlon already...

The most imprtant rule is: Follow the discussions and play carefully.
Rather play less turns or ask for a skip then rushing through the turns.
And if someone is unsure how to proceed, stop, post the save and ask for advice.
We have time enough.
Although we tok our time for our turns we were the first to finish in the last GOTM.

 

[archphoenix]

archphoenix, what would taht worker build east?
Otherwise moving S or even staying in place makes more sense.

this single move show why a un-pop-VC gotm player will never become a true elite player even get a Eptathlon

 

[socralynnek]

It was meant to be a real question.
Cause I think, I am often too less open minded to options that I can only see when looking twice.

For me, Irrigating the cow was a no-brainer, but now I can see, that mining it could be even better.
As city placement and worker moves are probably decisive in this variant, we shouldn't rule out something just because it doesn't look good in the first place.

BTW, always when I chose an unpopular VC, I still didn't get a single award, so you can't be too bad a player either.

 

[socralynnek]

All three teams that played already had 19 culture when loading up at 3000 BC. That does mean that they all moved a tile, or not?

 

[PaperBeetle]

Apropos decide, we need to decide who's the leader of the team. I vote for PaperBeetle, I am pretty sure he'd do a good job (and probably is the best player of us)

Succession captaincy eh? Thanks for the support chief. Okay, I'll vote for me too... although I know Wardancer is a stronger player than me on the field of battle (and according to my sig, that's the most significant part of the game) I think commitment to the game is a more important quality for this post. And I'm pretty sure I'll be putting the hours in here right up to the end.

So 2 votes for me and 0 votes for all other candidates . Do I have the chair? If so, let me ask a couple of captain-style questions...

@madviking: are there any areas of the game you reckon you are particularly strong or weak in, and how do you feel about micromanagement? I might help to know for picking a smart roster.

@all: when do you like to play best? weekdays or weekends? We could try alternating weekday players and weekenders, to run at about 2 turnsets per week. Though as socralynnek mentioned before, we should be more worried that we play too fast, not too slow. The ideal would be for every player to have the chance to comment before each turnset.

Length of turnset: #1 = 20 turns, then 10 turns thereafter. We could think about switching down to 5 later in the game. How about switching to 5 after we get the FP up? By that point we must have more towns, and more toys to play with in general.

Length of game: although it is very difficult to predict how this variant will play out, I would actually expect this game to be over faster than the last one (900ad), provided we can put together a strongly researching empire by the time the AI drops off in research ability.