SGOTM 13 - Spooks

[AlanH]

Welcome to your SGOTM 13 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 December 14th, at midnight, server local time.

Rik Meleet has prepared a Huge map with 29 rivals, at Demigod level. You play as Japan, you start on a small island, and the only way anyone can win - before 2050 - is to build a spaceship. Thanks, Rik, and best wishes to both of you in your future as a married couple.

Here's the start.

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Japan
Difficulty - Demi-god
Opponents - 29
World - Huge (250 x 125), Continents, 70% water
Barbarians - Roaming

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration. Rik isn't saying anything, as he's far too busy on his honeymoon, but we can assume the map has been "adapted"

Game mods:
We shall use the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread.

Following recent discussions about exploits for extracting large amounts of "free" gpt from the AI, so-called "Emsworth Agreements", we shall operate the following rule as proposed by Lanzelot:

In a deal which includes a resource, a millitary alliance or a trade embargo, the human player is not allowed to pay the AI more gpt to AI than the AI demands.

Detailed discussions of the reasoning surrounding this are available starting here in the Sign-up thread for this game, as well as in a number of other HoF and GOTM-related forums.

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 a patched 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 Spaceship 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.

D. Good luck, and enjoy the game

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Yay i'm first !

I suggest worker to hill

 

[Andronicus]

That makes me second

1 city (size 6) or 2 (size 4) for our starting rock?
- unless further food boni revealed on east coastal tiles.

I am wondering if we are going to have somewhere to escape to once we get MM. Will we have to squeeze in between AI on some distant continent already mostly filled up, or will we have a smaller continent to ourselves which the AI cant access till ocean travel?

My guess is this game has 2 components
1) fastest winner will have fastest worldwide research
2) need to have enough productive cities to build those parts, obtain necessary strategic resources and beg borrow or steal our way to necessary techs

The SG I started in of Koreans to space 5CC showed it is not necessary to have a large empire.

 

[Paul#42]

Batting order
Andro - up
KC - on deck
Paul - just played

Lost in action
Wacken (gone - read other spoilers to be save from comeback)
Monti (lost)
Redbad (gone, said good-bye)
Abe (lost)

Already played turns:
1. Wacken 20
2. Paul 8
3. KC 12
4. Abe 10
5. Paul 30
6. KC 10
7. Andro 10
8. Redbad 10
9. Paul 12 (-110 BC)
10. KC 5 (-10 BC)
11. KC 5 (-90 BC)
12. Paul 11 (-280 AD)
13. Andro 7 (-350AD)
14. KC 9 (-440 AD)
15. Paul 8 (-520 AD)
16. Andro 7 (-590 AD)
17. KC 8 (-670 AD)
18. Paul 11 (-780 AD)

 

[Redbad]

And here I am.

I'm with Paul. Can't really think of a reason to move the settler. Settling in place will reveal more then moving the worker to the hill. And it saves a worker turn.

Priority on naval capability looks evident.

Btw. Currently I'm moving house. It will keep me quite occupied until mid januari. Of course I'll pop in reguarly, but I possibly will have little occasions to make in dept analyses until half januari.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

moving the worker to the hill reveals the northeast coast wich may reveal reasons to move the settler to the hill. It will also reveal the southeast of the island, wich may not be so usefull. With nothing to irrigate, the cost of moving the worker is not so high this time

 

[Redbad]

yes, true. A whale or someting beyond the NE coast is a reason to move the settler to the hill.

 

[Paul#42]

Good catch on the worker tasks.
I agree with moving the worker to the hill first.

 

[killercane]

My initial thoughts are:

-worker to hill sounds good
-research Alpha seems no brainer
-build settler if there is room 2 SE of capital
-road all tiles first before mines (or go ahead and mine the cow for quicker settler?)
-build order warrior-settler?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

If we decide to build a settler, i think it should have every priority to finish it asap as it doubles our growth as soon as we settle. If mining first improves the production of the settler, we should do so. When the settler is built, we can continu roading first.

We could make some excel sheets to see how fast we can get the settler. This may help us to answer some questions:
-The cost of moving the worker (does it delay the settler?)
-The value of finding a whale ? (is it worth the combined cost of moving the worker and then the settler?)
-Should we settle a second town if there is a cow there ?

I don't think we need a warrior, but if we find it worthy for MP purposes, we could make 1 after the settler i guess. Other than that i think we need only curraghs
If we want to protect our citie and worker against barbarians, we will need something stronger than a warrior. When will the start unloading boats on our island ?

 

[Abegweit]

Hi all. Seems like everyone got in before me. You guys are just too fast.

Agreed on the worker move and the water techs. Since we're all in agreement on this, why doesn't someone (Wacken?) move the worker as soon as the save is available and then we can talk about where to settle.

It's perhaps a little too early to talk about a build order but, aside from the things also mentioned, an early curragh or three is obviously important. Agreed that, if we decide on a second city, the settler is our number one priority.

 

[killercane]

My headmath says 7 turns at 2 shields per turn, 7 more at 3 shields. If we dont mine, we make 35 shields before growth to 3 and settler is produced. So it might make sense to mine the cow (43 shields?) and produce the warrior first. Faster science and we cant build curraghs til alphabet. All assuming no additional food to the SE.

 

[Montalbano]

So, i'am in. Hello to all of you.

I agree to the worker move and then we should decide whats to do next.

 

[killercane]

So, i'am in. Hello to all of you.

I agree to the worker move and then we should decide whats to do next.

Your name reminds me of one of the greatest villains of all time. Good to have you!

 

[Paul#42]

Welcome Montalbano.

I already looked up some of your posts here but did not find too much.

I hope you enjoy excessive discussions on micro management coupled with thorough excursions to major empire management...
If you want to know what this will feel like, take a closer look at our team thread in SGotm 12. It will tell you much about the way we discuss and play and about our characters and attitudes.

It is essential for the success (and hence fun) of the whole team that you ask questions if you have trouble to understand. There are no stupid questions, it is only stupid if one does not ask and waste a game for the whole team.
I put it that harsh, because in the last games we witnessed a couple of games wasted by a single turnset because a player was not listening and misplayed in key situations.

We all make mistakes, that's part of the game but we also developed a sense for when to stop and ask the team for advice and decisions and when to take a decision on our own. The man with the mouse decides, but he shall follow the decisions made by the team.

If we all obey that we will have a lot of fun in this game and learn a lot.
So let's have some fun!

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Welcome Montalbano.

Indeed, we try to play it more like a democracy game. In fact, we even don't really like to work democratically and prefer endless discussions until we all agree
Playing the turns is just a formality that causes us all to sweat when we have to do it as we don't want to be the one making big mistakes

I'm gonna sleep now, tomorrow i will first calculate if moving the worker has any effect on the warrior-settler build. If not, i will move the worker and post the new 4000BC save here. If it will slow down the warrior-settler, i'll wait a little before moving it.

 

[Paul#42]

Just had a look at the save with CA2.

Alphabet is 285 beakers
That will take us quite a while working our island before we can explore the world...

Too bad CA2 does not publish the rivals
Well actually it's almost everybody anyway But who's missing?
Guess our early monopoly on The Wheel won't gain us too much...

edit: CA2 reveals the cow is on a BG! So no need to mine it, it's already doing 2spt!
So it's 3spt right from the start.
Nevertheless we should road the cow first and then improve the BG (or whatever lies in the fog).
So if we optimize commerce and road first, we'll get the first mine in turn 13 (worker to cow) or 14 (worker to hill).

Is it best to build a settler at size 3? Our best commerce tile is the fish we won't work for ~6 turns, then.
Maybe a settler at growth to four is better - commerce wise.
We are not SEA so our 2nd city center will get just 2cpt (?), that's one less than the two pops for the settler would get.
Stupid me, the new town will not just get commerce from the city center but also from a coastal tile or scientist or whatever.
So let's build it on growth to size 3.

Too bad we start with neither Pottery nor Bronce Working. Two options less to discuss what to use all those shields for.
So imo we should also check to build two warriors before the settler.

So main target to me is brain. We should eat as much fish as possible. That way we will learn to travel the sea

edit2: I'm having a tough time preventing myself from accidently browsing the other threads. It's been a quite while since I have played such a format...

 

[Paul#42]

On the lineup:

Andro announced he'd be available for play from mid of January.
Redbad might be similar moving house over Christmas .

I'd put you guys at the end of the lineup, but when you are back, we might well move you up to get you some quick mission.

Wacken will do the lead-off.
I'd like to build the lineup in order of reporting here in the thread.

That would put me second, KC third, Abe fourth, Monti fifth.
Is Monti okay for you? I'll allow you to leave out my #42 then
I'll post this draft order into my first post.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

We should also try and make sure there is a road to our second city as this will reduce the time to settle it by 2 turns.

With the BG under the cow, i think that means no mining for now, just produce the settler at growth to 3 and have the road done by then.

I'll be back with some calculations soon.
----------------------------------------
If we first move the worker to the hill, then assuming the settler won't move, we move it south to the second city spot. We road there and move west to the BG. We road there, then mine. This allows us to produce 1 warrior and a settler before size 3 with a pretty big production overshoot. If we do not move the worker to the hill, but start roading and mining that BG right away, we can even build two warriors and have the road as well as the settler completed in time.

 

[Paul#42]

Are you sure we should not road the cow first? It's the tile we'll almost always work.

In my szenario, the worker goes to the hill, then road cow, BG, then new town tile. We get a warrior and the settler with even working the fish five turns to get 55 beakers (of 285 )

Sorry, no dedicated Excel-tool available, I hope I made no mistakes...