SGOTM 13 - tao

[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

 

[denyd]

DenyD checking in - I'll take a more detailed look at this one and post more thoughts later, but for a first glance, settle in place with worker to cow to mine & road (or road & mine) - First build is a warrior to see if this island is really this small.

 

[ThinkTank]

Signing in. Have been looking forward to this.

What denyd said. Additionally, set research to alphabet, we want curraghs out fast.

 

[Furiey]

Hi everyone, good to have one of these to play again.

Agree, about in place and the cow. As soon as we settle we'll see whether this is a 1 city island or not. If Rik has given us more than that we will need to explore and ensure sufficient troops for MP and Barb protection, otherwise they are low on the priority list as we are not likely to be attacked by other civs for a while. Could be a 1CC for a while though.

 

[ignas]

Checking in

Definitely alphabet first, maybe we could get it few turns earlier than in 50(needs to chech civassist) so firstly roading and working high commerce tiles. We will need to get out of this island ASAP, so palace jump will be in order some time in future

 

[tao]

Hello everybody, welcome old and new companions!

It looks like we have quite a task. But we also seem to be a team up to this task!

Despite the good number of experienced players, may I suggest that we do some discussion before each turnset? IMHO we (team tao) did not do this enough in sgotm12 and I include myself as one of the culprits.

Experience shows that even good players becoming better by exchanging ideas with team members.

I suggest us playing in alphabetical order this time:
denyd, Furiey, greatbeyond, ignas, tao, TheOverseer714, ThinkTank

We should have a "got it" notice from the next player within 72 hours after her/his turns show up. But please don't start playing before the discussion.

In case you are busy/away, please ask for either a skip or swap. Thank you.

Looking forward to an interesting experience.

Regards
tao

 

[ignas]

Despite the good number of experienced players, may I suggest that we do some discussion before each turnset? IMHO we (team tao) did not do this enough in sgotm12 and I include myself as one of the culprits.

God idea, discussions that's what we needed most in SGOTM12..

 

[ThinkTank]

Despite the good number of experienced players, may I suggest that we do some discussion before each turnset?

Absolutely! We need a plan and discussion is going to improve that plan!

 

[greatbeyond]

Great Beyond has arrived.

All indications are that this is an island. It looks like moving the worker 1S to the BG should answer the question for sure. If it is, settling in place is a no-brainer. If we are on an island, perhaps the first build could be a Temple, as in the current COTM, happiness seems to become an issue very early, and if there isn't any room for barbarians to spawn we have no need of a warrior until we have reached our happiness limit with no city garrison. Alphabet does seem the way to go to explore the world early and perhaps get a tech advantage. After Alpha, I suggest writing, and then if we are teching rapidly, we could go for philosophy. In the current COTM I missed Philosophy by two turns because of happiness issues. If we can't get philosophy first, we should move right to mapmaking.

Of course, take all of these with a grain of salt as I can't match the consistent high placements of others.

 

[denyd]

Greatbeyond: The problem with a temple (even though it's cheaper for us to build) is the cost of 1gpt for maintenance on the temple. It's cheaper to build 2 warriors (20 shields to a temples 30 shields) and get 2 content citizens to the the temples 1. Until we need a 5th unit there is no cost to have those warriors. With limited towns, we'll have very meager income and we'll need it all for research to ever get off this island.

Also moving the worker to anywhere but the cow means we'll be improving a tile that isn't our most powerful to as the game starts. In 10 turns when our borders expand, we'll probably know if this is an island and by then the cow will be fully improved, the worker will be on his 2nd tile and we'll be well along on our initial research project.

As for research you are right that we should be heading alphabet->writing->philosophy hoping for map making as the bonus.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Spamming for subscription purposes. I will get other stuff done tomorrow, such as the mod file downloaded. Now, if I can find that stupid NoAIPatrol line....

Hmm, I can''t find the .ini file, and I don't know where to put the mod. Help!

 

[AlanH]

Hmm, I can''t find the .ini file, and I don't know where to put the mod. Help!

The .ini file is in the same folder as the Civ3Conquests.exe software file. If you have a desktop shortcut to launch C3C then the easy way to find it is to right click that shortcut and select Properties. Click the "Find Target" button to open the folder it lives in. On my virtual XP system the conquests.ini file is at:

"C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Conquests\conquests.ini"

In the same folder as conquests.ini you should also have a folder called "Scenarios". Drop the unzipped SGOTM mod folder into that folder.

 

[greatbeyond]

More food for thought after creating a (rough) game with the known parameters
(check my calculations, because I could be wrong)

at 4 pop with two warriors, you need 10% happiness slider
at 5 pop with two warriors, you need 20 % " "
at 5 pop with three warriors, you need 20 %, and the same with 4 warriors

Because Alpha will still not be done by this time (to build a carrack), should the order of build be:
warrior, warrior, temple? At Pop 5, this would allow cutting back the happy slider to 10%. Building additional warriors doesn't seem to have any effect.

Or would it be better to switch to wealth, or convert a citizen to a scientist?
It looks like with the available food we can run 1 scientist at Pop 6 with out running short of food, this should also cut the research of alpha by 3 to 4 turns and we only have to have 2 warriors.

Speaking of food, does anyone remember the resource values for oysters/pearls and is there any happiness bonus for working them? I checked but could not find info for the resources in the Med. mod.

You are right about moving the worker to the cow first, I forgot about expansion after 10 turns which should reveal if it is an island, and waiting ~ 10 turns to find out shouldn't hurt us.

I'm thinking that we probably won't get the philo bonus unless the other Civs have been modded. If we F10 after loading it should reveal all the other civs but it won't tell us if their starting techs have been changed

Worker actions? first to mine cows then unless something better is revealed do we start roading and then to the BG and mine or just mine then Road. I'm leanig toward roading first because I think will need the gold over production. Any thoughts?

I believe that after the initial expansion, we will be working the cows, BG w/mine, oysters/Pearls, fish, ?, ?

My head is starting to hurt

Is anyone good with the Civ 3 editor to create a test game?

 

[ThinkTank]

Some fog gazing. Can the tile SE-S of the settler be fresh water? Because if so we likely want to irrigate the cow instead of mining it. Further, the tile 3SE an SE-SE-S could well be land. Finally, there appears to be something in the water at our NE shores but I cannot see what.

So I would say worker to the hill. This wastes one worker turn but we will get an answer to all three issues. Then we decide where to settle and what to research. It may be unlikely that we will not settle on the spot or not research alphabet. But I have been thinking that this start is a trap. It may not be the small island that it seems.

 

[Furiey]

Looking at the save with photoshop there does appear to be something in the sea along the gridline between the 2NE and ENE sea tiles. A resource is unlikely to be on the gridline though. I'm not convinced there's anything in the 2NE sea tile though. The land extension (if there is one) will be from that 2SE tile.

The only move we could make to settle that would not lose us the resources we already have would be on to the hill. What extra would we need to make that worth while? Even if that is is land to the SE I think land will be at a premium and we will need to maximise what we have. I still therefore think settle on the spot and start work on the cow.

 

[ignas]

If we are on this small island as it seems our goal is max science (get ASAP to map making in order to get out of this tiny? island) by sacrificing growth and production: firstly roading everything and after cultural expansion working high commerce tiles like oysters and fish, assigning scientists.

Maybe we can think of putting one more city in this island? This will increase our research capacity.

EDIT: Seems team spooks didn't settle on the spot. What forced them them to move? Maybe the island isn't that small? Also from territory graph seems that team Ivan prolly settled one city before 3000BC. So maybe worker on the hill to get better view of our island?

 

[denyd]

Speaking of food, does anyone remember the resource values for oysters/pearls and is there any happiness bonus for working them? I checked but could not find info for the resources in the Med. mod.

Pearls are 2/0/4 (F/S/C) without a harbor (3/0/4 with)
Oysters are 2/0/2 without a harbor (3/0/2 with)

If those are coastal rocks they are 1/1/2 w/o harbor (2/1/2 with)

 

[TheOverseer714]

Are oysters a lux resource, or a bonus resource? If they are a bonus resource, then they have to be in the city radius to have any use. If we move S, we lose them. If this is an island, we'll need everything we can get. I agree to giving up 1 worker turn to be absolutely sure it is indeed an island as that colors our whole strategy.

 

[Furiey]

Oysters, Rocks and Pearls are Bonus Resourses not Luxuries.

They are Rocks in the coastal tile in the NNE.

We therefore lose them if we move the settler to the SE or S.

If it is an Island then we could possibly fit a 2nd city in 2SE, if there's more land then we'll be able to position a 2nd city a bit better. Settling on the spot leaves both options open.

 

[denyd]

My biggest quandry is whether to road (for more commerce) or mine the cow (for more shields) first. Right now I'm leaning towards road first, then mine. Once the cow is improved, the worker moves to the BG to road & mine. I think that's probably the best order here too. Working the cow will get us to pop 2 in turn 7. The 1st warrior will be done in turn 5, so no need for an early lux slider.

I put together a spreadsheet for the first 26 turns at which point we'd have 2 towns, 4 warriors & a curragh. (attached)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=165742&stc=1&d=1197665348