SGOTM 12 - X-Nuts

[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

 

[denyd]

Deny D checking in and wondering how the team wanted to play this one.

My suggestion:
Settle on the spot
Worker to cow and irrigate
First build is a warrior, then curragh
Research to writing at maximum hoping to get philosophy for a free tech

Any other options for the opening moves?

Any thoughts on order of play?

 

[leif erikson]

That's what I get for sending a PM, Denyd beat me to the punch!!


Welcome to AVN and welcome back to Bluebox and the rest of our intrepid crew.

Please feel free to ask questions.

This looks like another of Gyathaar designs, to drive us , well, X-Nuts...

EDIT - How about if we move the worker south and see if it is worth moving the settler SE?

 

[civ_steve]

civ_steve checking in! Well first thing we should do is get our Settler Factory up and running! At least in this game we don't have to worry about expansion, except by conquest.

SE looks interesting. I think I see the head of another Cow to the SE-E. The SE settler move would trade out 4 Coastal spaces and a plains space for 5 other spaces, which we can't know what they are unless we move the Worker twice. Coast might be nice for the commerce it provides (once we have a harbor operating); otherwise the move seems reasonable.

I've never operated under the Feudal government; any quick tutorials?

 

[denyd]

I considered SE as an alternative to settling in place and if that's a cow then it is a good idea. If that is a cow (could it be another elephant?) then I agree with SE and settle, if not settle in place. If we settle in place we also get the advantages of instant ivory connection and one turn quicker research on the first tech, but a grassland cow (maybe even a BG Cow) would be worth the move. Remember that as a seafaring tribe we'll get a commerce bonus for citizens working saltwater tiles.

Any thoughts on building something besides a warrior first? Maybe a curragh or a spearman for MP duty?

Also I'd like to see us go for Mathematics with the Philosophy bonus if we get it and build SoZ. Getting a free AC every 5 turns would give us some early warfare advantages.

 

[leif erikson]

An early Curragh, with the bonus move for Seafaring, would be nice. Let's see what is around us?

Whether to move the settler or not is an interesting decision. With so many civs on the map, we may be able to trade if we can meet as many as possible as quickly as possible and become a tech broker for a while.

How do we see this game evolving? Since it is fastest to diplomatic win, then perhaps we should consider trading and occassional warfare as our primary goals and not worry so much about self-research. Each civ should have a minimum of 2 cities, as they may pop one from a hut, as I understand it, and that's it. So, in some cases, pointy stick may work.

Now, to bring that all back again, moving the settler may provide more shields of production instead of gold for research?

Am I making any sense?

 

[Mathilda]

Hi guys
I agree that SE-E is a cow.
Atm, not much else apart from don't ask me to play this weekend, I've got a bit of a flu and don't feel too sharp.
AVN played a test game on this, I'm sure he'll be telling you his experiences soon enough.

 

[AVN]

Good morning team

For the players who don't know me, I like to tell that I'm living together with Mathilda (we learnt to know each other on CFC) and that's the reason that I like to play with her in the same team. Just as we did twice in the old Peanut teams.

I'm looking forward to this game, although :
- I don't have experience with deity. (I'm comfortable till Emperor).
- I don't have won diplomatically ever (not tried to too).
- I don't have experience with the Feudal government.

Because of that I have started a test game last weekend. (same settings as is in this game, but with a random map. The starting position was much weaker. (No cows or ivories, only a few BG's)).

Even with that relatively bad start, I was able to have Feudalism, Monotheism and Engineering in 1125 BC and to be clear tech leader by that time. Furthermore I had conquered one other city and was in my Golden Age.
The bad news. Researching Invention on full speed would still take 50 turns.

I will tell more about this test game (and my conclusions after playing it), tonight when I have more time to post.

ATM I only like to answer Civ Steve's question what Feudalism is.
- There is no despotic penalty
- We can use some MP'sfor keeping the population happy.

But that are all the good things I can tell about this government.
Negative :
- Corruption is rampant (same as Despotism).
- WW works like WW in Republic.
- No money bonuses like in Republic.
- Unit support is very expensive. 3 gold per unit for each unit we have above the free support limit.
And for free unit support small cities are better than big ones.
Towns give 5 free units, cities (size 7-12) only 2, metropoles (size 13+) only 1.

So for money reasons, size 6 cities are often optimal (after reduction of costs a size 6 city will generate quite often more money than a size 12 city). However libs and unis (which are cheap in this game can improve the situation in not too corrupt towns, and lots of luxuries will help too).

OK, that's it for the moment. Real life is calling. More tonight.

And please warn me, when my posts are too long. I tend to write long analysises and opinions

 

[civ_steve]

Welcome back, AVN! It will be nice to hear your analysis's again, and this game will need them!

I see in the notes for the game that each CIV gets 10 extra free unit support. So we have 15 free units at size 1-6, and 12 free units at size 7-12 (and 11 at size 13+). Phew! I really didn't fancy facing Deity level AI with only 5 free units!

So our military will cost us 9 more gold at size 7 then at size 6 (assuming we're 15 or more). If we go over size 6, we probably want to pop up as high as possible so that we have extra citizens helping us pay for our military.

Commerce may be very important in this game, which is why I'm not sure that a SE move is best. The potential extra commerce from the Coast spaces we give up will not be made up for a long time by typical ground. (Of course all the Ivory spaces help make that up!). Moving SE also brings a Jungle into our fat cross - eventually clearable, but not much help in the near term.

I think fast contacts are pretty crucial. A curragh or two to send out exploring right away sounds good - we might even be all alone on a small island!

Combat will be crucial, for survival and to forge diplomatic partnerships. After we capture a few more cities we'll be able to breathe easier as well; more free units and more cities to build them.

 

[bluebox]

Bluebox checking in! Thanks for the welcome back note, Leif! I'm at work so I'll post my thoughts on how to take on this one later back home. Tried a test game, too.

Till then, bb

 

[leif erikson]

The standard rule set includes differential naval movement, so a couple of Curraghs to scout is the fastest way to find out about our world.

From the Civilopedia:
Feudalism
Worker efficiency = 100%
Hurry method = forced labor (pop-rush)
Corruption/waste = Problematic (same as Monarchy)
War Weariness = Low (same as Republic)
Draft Rate = 2
Military Police Limit = 3
Unit Support
per town = 5
per city = 2
per metropolis = 1
Maintenance costs per unit per turn = 3 Gold

@AVN - I wouldn't worry about inexperience with Deity or Feudalism as I know I am in the same boat with you, not much! And analysis is good, gives us something to chew on and discuss.

And looking forward to Bluebox's analysis of his test game results as well.

Proposed roster:
AVN - first 20 turns
Bluebox - next 10 turns
Denyd
Gator
Civ_Steve
Mathilda
Leif

The roaded Ivory tiles will produce 3 GPT when worked. The coastal tiles will produce 2 GPT when worked until we can build a commercial dock and then they produce 3 GPT. In the early stages of the game, aren't we better off working the Ivory tiles for food, production and commerce? There is no despotism penalty in this game as it is removed with Feudalism. I think the move to the SE is still viable if there is anything worthwhile to the east and the jungle tile will be in our fat cross no matter if we settle on the spot or move.

Do we want to move the worker to the south and post a screenie to show what is there?

 

[leif erikson]

Just doing a little homework here and wondering about developing our only city. As we can't build settlers, I was thinking that we should prolly irrigate the grass cow and mine the plains cow. That would give us +6 food which should be plenty until we find, or trade for, some happy pills. And provide us with some shields to produce Curraghs and a Warrior or two to scout. I suppose we have to think about defense as well, depending on if we are sharing this land with someone else?

 

[denyd]

The roaded Ivory tiles will produce 3 GPT when worked. The coastal tiles will produce 2 GPT when worked until we can build a commercial dock and then they produce 3 GPT.

Since we're SEA will get a bonus commerce when working saltwater tiles. so having access to the sea will be a good thing for research.

What I'm pondering is the choice of irrigation most of the nearby tiles and supporting a couple of scientists versus mining the tiles and having the extra production.

I've put a little more thought into the early game selections and still think researching Writing at maximum followed by Philosophy is the best choice. After that I'm torn between Map Making, Mathematics and Literature as the best choice for the free tech. With Map Making, Dromons are available and we can start the Great Lighthouse as a pre-build while researching either Mathematics (for SoZ) or Literature (for Great Library), while with Mathematics we can go for SoZ right away while researching MM.

As for settling, if that is a second cow, then I think SE and settle is better than settling in place though it will cost a turn of research. Either way the worker should go to the plains cow and irrigate then road.

After a little thought, we're probably alone as we'd be no match for any nearby AI. A quick review of the diety table, has the strongest AI would be Germany with 8 Spearmen, 8 Archers, 2 Settlers and 3 Workers at the start, with the weakest having 12 Warriors instead of the Archers & Spearmen.

 

[AVN]

Thanks to Leif for offering me to start off this game
I will gladly accept his invitation. I like to play Saturday evening/Sunday morning, local time, so there is still some time to discuss things.

(I also have no problems with the proposed playing order).

Regarding the test game I played. I wasn't alone on my island and had my neighbours (Aztecs and Persia) very close. That's not surprising, because 1500/60 means that there are only 25 tiles on average for a city. After the first expansion the borders will already touch each other.

Anyway I went for Writing on max speed, and built after the initial (scouting) warrior, 2 spearmen for necessary defense. This kept Persia and Aztecs friendly. After that I built 3 curraghs.

I was very fast beaten by several countries in the research of writing and I had to make a gpt deal (I had to give gpt) to be able to buy it. But I could sell it to other countries for enough money (in lump sum) to cover for this gpt payment. And of course I received quite a number of other techs too.

I went for Philosophy after that, but was again beaten to it very fast. And I had to wait several turns before I was able to buy it for an affordable price.
Again sold it around and had then a few hunderd bugs in cash for future trading and to cover unit costs if necessary for some time.

I continued with Literature and of course was again beaten to it, but again (after a few turns) was able to buy it and all the other AA-techs except Monarchy and Republic (with all sorts of possible deals) and went to the MA, receiving Feudalism.

Gifted all the scientific civs, with which I wasn't warring at that moment to the MA as well and was then able to trade for Monotheism.

At that moment I had a short war going on with the Sumerians and I was able to capture a city (bombarding possibility of the Dromons is a nice help with this), the Sumerians sent a pile of 15 Enkidu warriors, but I was able to sent reinforcements into the capture city (had 6 units there, mainly swords) and the Sumerians offered peace, which I accepted.

Gifted them to the MA too, they received as 2nd nation Engineering which I could buy now.

Could continue with the research for Invention in 50 turns (with GA).

Lessons for me from this game :

- We need to conquer cities as soon as possible (probably somewhere in the MA) to keep our research at reasonable speed in the MA.

- Exploration in the AA is critical. We need to know all the other civs asap to maximize trade possibilities. And we need to check for trade possibilities every turn (civassist II is a great hulp with this) and sell the techs we have as soon as possible, even if we can get only 15 or 20 bugs for them. (but it adds up nicely if you are able to do that 10 times in a turn).

- Try to buy workers with the techs too. We don't need many of them, but they can be merged in the capitol, so that we can reach size 12 faster. And for the capitol size 12 is acceptable, because we have enough sea tiles, which generate 3 gold, available.

- Building wonders in the AA is very risky. They were built very fast. In my game the Statue of Zeus was already built in 1750 BC.

So far my test game. In my next post I will describe my ideas for the first 20 turns (I assume that the first player get 20 turns, following players 10 each).

 

[AVN]

My plans for the first 20 turns :

1) Send worker south to the cow, just to see if there is something exceptional around. If that's not the case settle in place. 2 cows and 4 ivories are ideal to work as the first 6 tiles.

2) Irrigate and road the 2 cows (will give 7fpt, so growth in 3 turns). After that continue with the elephant tiles (cut forest, road and mine).

3) Start research on writing, to be followed by philosophy (alternative wil be discussed below).

4) Start on spearman, and a second one if we have neighbours on the island.
After that build 3 curraghs (if we don't have neighbours I will build the curraghs after the first and only spear). And then ....

Here I see a problem. I can continue with a barracks and then start building offensive units, but we don't have a guarantee that we can build archers then, and I even don't want to think about horses or swords. The chances that we don't have access to iron or horses are great. And we will need stronger forces than archers for conquering other cities....

Therefore the idea of prebuilding the Statue of Zeus after building the 3 curraghs, if we are alone on the island.

Given our strong starting position it should be possible to finish the building of it before 1750 BC and IMO we can have Mathematics before the AI will finish Pyramids and Colossus which we can use as prebuilds.

But of course there is still the risk that we are beaten by the AI (or by building both our possible prebuilds, before we have Mathmatics, or by building Statue of Zeus faster than we do) and in that case we lose a lot of shields.

If we want to go this path, we should start our research with Masonry, to be followed by Mathematics and after that Writing (hopefully can trade for it, but I wasn't able to buy the equally priced Mathematics with Writing in my testgame) and Philosophy.

I like to hear the opinions of others on this, and also other suggestions/improvements on my plan for the first 20 turns.

 

[leif erikson]

I started a Deity game with the settings we have but not that many civs, just to get a feel for things. I agree that exploration is the key and meeting as many civs as possible as quickly as possible is what allowed me to stay even, or get ahead, in the tech race. The pace is very fast and using CivAssist2 is very helpful.

As we can only build one city, we may need workers and land units to secure and protect resources, particularly Iron and Happy Pills. Without resources in my game, I was able to tech Writing to Philosophy and traded, due mostly to Alphabet, for all the starting, Iron Working, Math and Mysticism.

I was also on an island with two other civs and was able to get out two Curraghs before building a Spear. I think at least one Curragh before the Spear is important.

Statue of Zeus, if we are alone, is a good risk, imho. Especially if we have no Iron for Swords. I think we should go for Writing and try to trade for Masonry, IW, Pottery and Math. Then we head for Philosophy and take Math if we haven't traded for it, or Map Making. We can research Map Making while we construct Temple of Zeus, should we decide it is worth the risk?

It will be interesting to see how the resources are spread around. If we have this much Ivory, it makes me wonder if other civs will have a concentration of one lux resource to encourage trading? Perhaps, we will be the only civ with Ivory? I know, wishful thinking?

In your first 20 turns, I don't think you'll have time to worry about Barracks and offensive units. A Spear and Curraghs should keep you plenty busy. After the 20, we can see where we are. Should we not be able to see our island after a couple of Curraghs, then we'll need a scouting Warrior to locate any resource we may need.

So much to consider...

EDIT - And a post by Gyathaar in the Maintenance Thread:
Check it out here.

 

[denyd]

I'm hoping Mr Gyathaar was a nice fellow and gave us an ivory monopoly. I also think that we're alone on an island with easy sailing to our neighbors. If not, the odds of most of the teams being wiped out by turn 10 when 6 attackers appear next to a capital defended by a single warrior.

 

[bluebox]

I'm hoping Mr Gyathaar was a nice fellow and gave us an ivory monopoly.

Dunno if it would be a good thing. If Gyathaar made sure we'll be able to build SOZ exclusively it would mean we need it! I'm already suspicious of the "favourable" three-cows-start.

My test game observations are similar to those already mentioned by AVN and Leif: Tech pace is incredibly fast, exploration is crucial, wonders are built very early.

Because exploration and trading is so important, I'd even build a curragh before a spear, but maybe that's a little bit too much of a risk.

If we are not alone on an island the AI might show up more quickly than we finish the warrior build.

AVN's plan for the first turn seems OK to me. That doesn't mean the rest of the plan wouldn't make sense, but I'd like to see how our starting area looks after the worker has moved.

 

[civ_steve]

Good discussions! My gut feeling is that we're alone on an island, and we have a near if not total monopoly on Ivory. Even if we're not alone, the Deity starting bonuses would make it impossible for anyone to win if the AI were very aggessive; they aren't, typically, so we're probably OK as long as we smile a lot, and say 'yes SIR!' to any 'request' made of us.

I think SEA civs get a bonus commerce in every city founded adjacent to Coast; if so, we get this whether we found in place or one space SE.

Definitely want +7 fpt - growth in 3 turns. Also, as mentioned, we probably want to prioritize food so that we can run a bunch of specialists when the time is right.

I think we want to get to the 3 MP capability pretty quickly. That would give us 4 naturally content people, and one gets converted to Happy with Ivory, allowing us to run at Size 5 pretty easily. We can also go higher in size fairly early, running the Lux% with all the commerce bonuses we have.

So I see us building 3 MPs interspersed with 2 to 3 Curraghs, and then several workers. Trading for workers sounds like a great idea! They'll be free units, so we can continue to develop territory and not have a Worker costing us 3 gpt. Once we are pretty developed (up to 12 useful squares) we can add our own Workers in for quick growth and still have AI workers around.

I am no fan of Spearmen! I'd rather spend only 30 shields on 3 Warriors, and perhaps upgrade them later. If we're not alone, perhaps build Archers, but I think we'll want to use our shields for other things.

Research wise I think it's best to go for Writing, and make as many trades as possible once its in (Masonry for sure!). I would then continue on to Philsophy to see if that can work; if it does, we might as well take Math if not already taken, or another high value tech, looking for trades. Republic and Monarchy have little value in the game! I think this path is the best direction for fast research, and with some luck, keeping us up with the Tech leaders.

Early combat will give us a big boost for intermediate research. Along those lines, SoZ seems like a requirement. Perhaps we focus on Food for Growth initially, and somewhere around turn 35 or so, mine those bonus Cows and Ivory to gain shields; that would get us to 13/spt at size5 (mined hill, mined 2 Cows and mined 2 Ivory). This is assuming that learning Math is timely. May need to research Math directly in that case. I don't have any feel for the tempo of this.

Not knowing what lies to the SE, founding in place is pretty strong! We get immediate connection with Ivory, we don't lose a turn of production, we gain the commerce bonus for the Ivory we founded on immediately and every turn thereafter, and we save the 7 turns of worker action to Irigate and Road the Ivory later. That's a lot of initial benefit; there would have to be something pretty good, but just out of reach to the SE to justify moving and founding, and I don't think we can afford moving our Worker twice to check it out.

So right now I'd go along with moving Worker to Plains Cow to see what's in the spaces adjacent to it, and plan to settle in place.

 

[bluebox]

BTW, and this is important: I don't think we get a gold bonus on every sea tile we work - we get a gold bonus in the city tile when our cities are on a salt water coast.

In my test game, working coast is still worth 2g, working sea 1g. The city tile has 5g at size 6 - the standard 2g, 1 for road, 1 or 2 for SEA, or something like that.

EDIT: crossposted about this point with steve.