[BTS] SGOTM 24 Xteam

AlanH

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Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 24 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.

You can find the Game Details in the first posts of the Maintenance Thread. If any changes occur in the game settings or rules, they will be posted in that thread.

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

Good luck with the game, and - Enjoy!
 
SGOTM 24 - Sitting Bull, Defender of the Trees



"They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse." - Chief Sitting Bull

"When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money." - Native American saying

Its time for you and your team to inherit the native american spirit and show yourself as a true enviromentalist. To do so you must force the rest of the world to run Enviromentalism for 100 turns! You may use carrot, whip or UN. It's up to you. Since 100 turns is an awfully long time there is an option to reduce that number to a minimum of 1 turn. This is done by sparing as many trees as you can.

The rules
  • After you change to Enviromentalism you are not allowed to change back.
  • At your first turn of enviromentalism, you can reduce the number of turns required by 2 for each forest preserve you have on your starting land as defined by the start screenshot.
  • At your first turn of enviromentalism, you can further reduce the number of turns required by 1 for every five forest preserves you have on other lands within your borders.
  • On the turn when you win the game you must still have at least the same number of forest preserves (not neceesary on the same locations) on both starting land and total. If you fail to achieve this your team will be graded behind teams who succeeded in keeping all their forests. If you expect to lose some preserves during this time you must state this in a pm to the mapmaker.
  • To claim the number of turns you need to force the world to run enviromentalist you must upload your save at the turn when you switch to Environmentalism, and post screenshots in your team thread of the preserves that will be counted.
  • If you are not using the UN to convince the AI to run enviromentalist we might ask you to post proof (screenshots, saves etc) that everyone is forced to do so for all turns and does not change back to another civic.

Your starting area
Click for a full size image




Game Options
Rivals: 6 AIs both friends and foes of the nature.
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No vassal state, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings
Map: Modified fractal
Mapsize: Standard

Sitting Bull is Philosophical and Protective, and you start with Fishing and Agriculture.
The Philosophical trait gives +100% great people birth rate and double production speed of University

The Protective trait gives free City Garrison I and Drill I promotion for archery and gunpowder units and double production speed of Castle and Walls

Unique unit: Dog Soldier (replaces Axeman)
The Dog Soldier benefits from: base strength = 4, requires access to nothing, and 100% combat bonus against melee units. This compares with the Axeman which has: base strength = 5, requires access to copper or iron, and 50% combat bonus against melee units.

Unique Building: Totem Pole (replaces Monument)
Besides the +1 culture/turn of the monument, the totem pole gives +3XP to archery units built in the city.
 
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TEAM RULES

  • [*]Have fun!
  • Read the various rule threads posted by AlanH.
    [*]Before playing every single turnset, verify that your ini file has the autosave interval set to 1.
    [*]Before playing every single turnset, verify that the BUFFY log is enabled.
  • After uploading your save file, post BOTH the CivFanatics log (displayed on the upload confirmation web page) and the BUFFY log.
  • No reloads! We get one shot, no replays, period!
  • No reading other team threads. The easiest way to do this is to use the thread tools to subscribe to this thread. You could also bookmark the thread.
  • When looking at the save, do not perform any irreversible action. Do not move units, whip, or trade.
  • The flying camera exploit is banned.
  • If the game crashes, stop and PM AlanH with the details of what happened. Wait for instructions from AlanH before proceeding.
  • Do not open auto saves except to recover from a crash.
  • Stop and consult the team for advice if a new opportunity presents itself.
  • Stop and consult the team if anything goes wrong.
  • Stop and consult the team if you make a mistake. We've all done it, we won't bite, just be open and honest.

Strongly Recommended

  • Make manual saves often, preferably every turn, at the beginning and end of the turn, in case we need to review diplomacy screens or other metrics.
  • Pause the game before uploading or examining it.
  • Put TEST flags on the map on test games, and name test games so it's obvious they aren't the real game.
  • Let us know if you are unable to make a deadline, get too busy in real life, or are going offline for vacation.
  • Do not automate workers.
  • Do not use city governors.
  • Do not leave units on goto orders.

Etiquette
  • Active participation -- Your contribution to every set is important, even if it's an 'I agree.' Although everyone might have real life issues sometimes, it's courteous to notify the team of your absence.
  • Pre-Play Plan -- The spirit of succession games is to play the game following the consensus of the team decision. Therefore the player who is UP should post a clear plan for discussion. Guidelines have been posted for the contents of your plan in the next post. It might be that the team decides to head in a direction you were opposed to, it does not mean you are wrong but rather that the team believes the odds of winning are more likely with the decided approach.
  • Timing -- We will stick to a schedule in order to complete this game within the ironcast deadline. It is still important to reach consensus and ensure quality of play.
  • Please, please, please include a report when you submit the save, complete with the CivFanatics log AND the BUFFY log. You may submit your report later but it would be preferable to have it before the discussion on the next set starts.
  • Finish all your discussed turns and upload the game saved at the END of the discussed part.
  • Don't be afraid to post things that may appear stupid or evident. Each player has strengths and weaknesses. There are numerous examples in the earlier SGOTM threads when the most simple rule has been unknown to players (such as the difference between peace treaty and cease fire). Don't be afraid that other members will think you are stupid.
  • Don't play intoxicated. Don't play when you are too tired. Don't play when your kids or spouse are talking to you.
  • Respect your team mates, and demand their respect. Take care of your writing style. Accept that people whose first language is not English will use English in a different way than you are used to. Disagree by all means, but don't make it personal, and don't take it personally.
  • Use smilies and emoticons in your posts. Jokes, humor, sarcasm, and offensive language can be misinterpreted.
  • Remember that a lot of players read what we post. Don't be rude or disrespectful to any player not on our team.
  • SG's are team games. Be a good team member. Post your ideas, argue your case, and encourage and praise your team mates. Don't be afraid to post in our game thread. That is what it's for.
  • Have fun!

Settings
  • Please set your Graphics setting on the main options screen to check "detailed city info". This tells how many turns until finishing build and how many turns until city growth. This is beneficial for screenshots.

  • Please set the following option in the Buffy setting (Ctrl-Alt-O) under the clock tab, uncheck "alternate game clock" and uncheck "completed percentage" while checking "completed turns" and "game date and golden age turns".

  • When referring to tiles in relation to another tile, please use a number for each direction such as 2S1E, as opposed to stating 2SE. 2SE could be interpreted as 2S1E or 2S2E.

  • When referring to a specific date/turn, please refer to the turn number, not the date. (feel free to add the date with the turn number.)

  • When referring to a turn when a unit or building/wonder is completed, please state the turn that the unit is produced and ready to move, or for buildings/wonders, state the turn that the build queue announces that a building/wonder is completed and a new build needs to be chosen.


*Copied from various team threads in previous SGOTM games.
 
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Turnsets

There are 7 major parts to every set.

  1. Initial Pre-Play Plan: see below.
  2. Voting: everyone voices his or her opinion on the issues raised in 1.
  3. Plan: see below.
  4. Critique of the Plan: once the Plan is posted, players should try/read the plan and look for anything they'd like to change. This is where you must support your arguments!
  5. Final Plan: tries to glue everything together.
  6. Play the Set: see below.
  7. Post the Report: see below

What is the Initial Pre-Play Plan?

The Pre-Play Plan is to initiate the discussion on the diverging possibilities at the start of a set. This includes, but not limited to, EP focus, general city micro, general worker micro, general techs. Basically, make an idea of what you want to do with your 10/15 turns.

Below are general ideas as to what you can cover with the pre-play plan. Not everything needs to be discussed, only the obvious decision points. If others feel that other missing issues should be raised, then the debate after the Initial PPP is the time to do it!

1. Technologies
  • What techs are you aiming for? (One, a beeline ex. Literature, part-research for trading)
  • What trades will you attempt with who and when? (When to sell for gold ex. first opportunity or wait for more, specify the leader(s), waiting for a wonder to finish so the AI get failure gold)
  • Are we planning a Great Person bulb?

2. Dealing with AIs
  • Resource trade negotiations
  • Espionage assignment
  • Open borders (cancel or allow)
  • AI demands (resources, cancel trades, who do we send packing or not, technologies, war, religions, civics)

3. City placement and builds - mostly in the beginning
  • Where are you planning on sending a settler?
  • Are you sending a worker along?
  • Is the land fogbusted/do we have an escort?
  • Initial city builds (Monument/Granary etc...)
  • Tile improvements around this city (food, hammers, commerce)

4. General micro
  • Special tile assignments (starve city for specialists, switch to growth, etc.)
  • Tile swapping with other cities
  • Whips
  • Build order (infrastructure/military/settlers/workers/wealth/science)
  • Dealing with happy/health caps
  • Worker improvements and moves

5. Civics and religion
  • Are you planning on civic switches/do we need to acquire the techs? (Caste for border pops, slavery for whip...)
  • Are we expecting a religion change?

6.War - if applicable
  • Refuse/accept AI war demands
  • Bribing civs to declare war or for stopping war
  • War plan (who, how many units and how to acquire them, which cities to strike, scouting prior to DoW...)

7. Bigger picture
  • Gifts (city, gold, techs...)
  • What AI do we try to please
  • Goals for the future
  • Diplo manipulation
  • Extras

What your Plan should cover:

The plan must contain 2 detailed parts:

  1. What you will check for every turn (EP, trades available, GPT available, etc.) [this is easy].
  2. Turn-by-turn worker moves, city micromanagement, unit movement and or general guidelines as to what we can't control via test game [this is the hard part].

The team will almost certainly decide to slack on #2 once the game becomes well in hand, but for the first 100 turns this is expected.

How your set should go:

  • Play according to the plan
  • If something unexpected (or an opportunity) comes up, STOP AND CHECK WITH THE TEAM.
  • If you have to adapt, do so!
  • You can add markers in game during and at the end of your set. It's a lot easier on team members to figure where units are going.

What your set report should cover:
  • WHEOOHRN alerts and possible/likely targets
  • Great Generals and Great Engineers in distant lands
  • Religions founded
  • Wonders built
  • When to renegotiate trades
  • What you were planning for the future
  • How the plan worked out/didn't
  • Anything unexpected
  • Remember to post BOTH the CivFanatics log (found on the upload confirmation screen) and the BUFFY log but note these are not substitutes for writing a good, clear report!.

(Again this is cribbed from many previous SGOTMs).
 
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Game Summary

Turns | Player | Result | Link
0 - 7 |zbg|Settled in place | https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-24-xteam.609660/page-3#post-14649879
8 - 11 |zbg|Explored, found Stone but no AIs | https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-24-xteam.609660/page-3#post-14651040
12 - 15 |zbg|Explored, found Darius | https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-24-xteam.609660/page-4#post-14652043
15 - 18 |zbg|No horses and discovered we were blocked in by Darius | https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-24-xteam.609660/page-4#post-14654012

Roster:-

NZ - Up
fractals - On deck
Cactus Pete - in the hole
zbg - just played
 
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Welcome to old friends and new - I'll put some team info in the reserved shots shortly but feel free to check in and introduce yourselves.

I'm a long term Civ player who struggled until discovering these forums and can now win regularly at all levels with the right settings. Going for my Emperor EQM in the Hall of Fame and that's probably my comfort level. I'm on the Hall of Fame staff and look after the web pages etc for Civ 4 and currently developing the system for Civ 6.

This is my 4th Succession game and I have one third place, one defeat and two wooden spoons under my belt!

I'm hoping for an interesting game where we learn from and support each other, discuss in detail as required but don't drown in it and most of all have fun.
 
Greetings, Xteam!
I'm also a long time player who's been semi-active on the forum. I tend to prefer playing at Emperor or Monarch, but I've won a handful of Immortal and Deity games.
I sat out the last SG due to the birth of my daughter. She's now 10 months old, and she occupies the majority of my free time. But she does go to sleep around 7:30 every night, so I have an hour or two I can devote to Civ. Hopefully, I can blow off work enough to read the thread during the day as well. :mischief:
Hope to have a great time, and no, I don't expect to win. I think the bronze is up for grabs, and that's about as high as my ambitions go.
 
So, what is there to say about the game so far?

I definitely see similarities to the last SG in terms of the goals. Sci Meth and Medicine are the major gate technologies in this game, while RR was it in the last one. They are at similar depths in the Tech Tree, so I think we can expect 1st place finishing around T130 and 3rd place around T160. (Maybe a little slower if GLib and Mids are not present at T0 and relatively easy to capture) Between Sci Meth and Medicine we have a large worker-based task to complete. I think 52 is the minimum number of preserves we would want. That's 100 - (47*2) - (0.2*5) = 5 turns of Enviro. If we bribe the AI to Enviro they have to stay in it for 5 turns. Building more preserves shaves that down, but it's very diminished returns at that point. I think U.N. is probably out of the question for a competitive game. I imagine we would want to have killed off all but one AI by the time we research Medicine.

That's my initial take, I'd love to hear your overall thoughts.
 
Hello Xteam!

I'm too a long time player, in fact i've been playing civ 4 for about 3 years

I've mostly played within my comfort zone, and for relaxing mainly, so I've managed to only win at prince.

That's 100 - (47*2) - (0.2*5) = 5 turns of Enviro

Yep, it sounds correct to me.

I think U.N. is probably out of the question for a competitive game. I imagine we would want to have killed off all but one AI by the time we research Medicine

ummmmmm, also agree with this statement, yet how could we do it????????????????

maybe wiping to death swordmans to annex a nearby civ. Then I've no idea :C

Although we should produce some chariots first and steal some workers form a nearby AI.

Also we could do a WB economy.

draft research plan:

we will need hunting to use the nearby resources. Bronze working and iron Working, as well as wonder/religious techs. I'd also love to hear more thoughts :D:D:D
 
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Interesting plan and probably the best way, I guess we chop nothing and reply on the whip. If we are aiming for t160 then yes the UN will take too long.

As for techs yes we will need Hunting early, BW for slavery, IW we should be able to get from the AI. Don't see any need for religious techs and doubt we will build many Wonders, although the WB economy is an interesting thought.

The Dog Soldier is weaker than an axeman so I think we will need horses for the real wars but Dog Soldiers are resourceless so good be good worker stealers.
 
Interesting plan and probably the best way, I guess we chop nothing and reply on the whip. If we are aiming for t160 then yes the UN will take too long.

As for techs yes we will need Hunting early, BW for slavery, IW we should be able to get from the AI. Don't see any need for religious techs and doubt we will build many Wonders, although the WB economy is an interesting thought.

The Dog Soldier is weaker than an axeman so I think we will need horses for the real wars but Dog Soldiers are resourceless so good be good worker stealers.



You're right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We don't need chariots and animal husbandry to steal workers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I guess we chop nothing and reply on the whip.

This seems to be the automatic conclusion, but I'm starting to question it. It's a long time to Sci Meth. If we chop strategically, there's a high probability of forests growing back. It would be good to understand the exact probabilities because it would be a big time gamble.

Don't see any need for religious techs and doubt we will build many Wonders, although the WB economy is an interesting thought.

I think Oracle is a definite possibility. I'll also toss out the idea of moving SE to the coast with our settler in order to get GLH. Haven't totally thought that through, but there's evidence of an island or other landmass to the west.

The Dog Soldier is weaker than an axeman so I think we will need horses for the real wars but Dog Soldiers are resourceless so good be good worker stealers.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with offensive strategies for Sitting Bull. He's so innately defensive, and this is a game where we need to be on offense from the very beginning. You can get really highly promoted archery units, but is it really possible to do a Longbow rush? Or a Crossbow rush?
 
By the way, I made a map of the starting area last night.
 

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I think Oracle is a definite possibility
I meant to list that as an exception! It's quite possible the Oracle will be already allocated as happened in the last couple of SGOTMs.

Don't think Longbows or Crossbows come early enough for a rush, but potentially with catapults they could be an effective attack force??
 
I meant to list that as an exception! It's quite possible the Oracle will be already allocated as happened in the last couple of SGOTMs.

Don't think Longbows or Crossbows come early enough for a rush, but potentially with catapults they could be an effective attack force??


Ummm

So we should start listing possible attack forces?

Axe rush - nop because of the low strengh of the dog soldier(DS).

catapult - DS - swordman SoD.?
 
Well, I can say that it is indeed possible to have a Longbow rush. Basically, you have to Oracle Feudalism. I did this on T69 in quick run through.

You can start cranking out Drill III LBs, or Drill II w/ Cover is even a little better. They get 90+% vs. a barb archer in a city with no culture bonus, and 78% vs. an archer in a 20% defense city. They even get winning odds against archers in hill cities.

Even so, I would say this is a backup plan. The traditional HA rush could start much sooner and it would probably be just as effective. So, we'll need to research AH relatively early to tell us if we have horse or not. The well-promoted LBs are way better than CR1 swords, so I wouldn't put a priority on IW. Dog Soldiers are all but useless. Cats can support LBs or HAs or even Swords, but can't do anything on their own.

We probably should back up a little and talk about settling location, first & second build, etc., but I'm not opposed to outlining a larger strategy from the beginning as well.
 
This seems to be the automatic conclusion, but I'm starting to question it. It's a long time to Sci Meth. If we chop strategically, there's a high probability of forests growing back. It would be good to understand the exact probabilities because it would be a big time gamble.

To answer my own question about forests growing back:

Everyone seems to be quoting Gyathaar's post for how regrowth works (see pre-game thread), but then LowtherCastle said that the base percentage for forest growth is only half that of jungles. So I took the more conservative option and used P=1-(1-.001*N)^t), where N is the number of adjacent forests and t is the number of turns. I decided to use 100 turns even though there will probably be 130+ turns before we go into Enviro. With that assumption, any single tile surrounded by 4 forests has a 33% chance to regrow, 3 forests = 26%, 2 forests = 18%, 1 forest = 9.5%.

Doesn't sound that great, but then you have to look at the starting map and realize that even without chopping anything there are 12 tiles with one adjacent forest, 4 with 2 forests, 7 with 3 forests, and 2 with 4 forests. The composite of all those probabilities is 99.25%.

So basically, it's a certainty that we'll grow another forest by the time we need it. Also, there's one spot to chop in the opening BFC that will have forests on 4 sides, so if we chop that, it's a 99.5% chance to get back to 47 forests.

I think we still need to sparing with chopping, but 2 or maybe 3 early chops could give us an advantage over the other teams...
 
To answer my own question about forests growing back:

Everyone seems to be quoting Gyathaar's post for how regrowth works (see pre-game thread), but then LowtherCastle said that the base percentage for forest growth is only half that of jungles. So I took the more conservative option and used P=1-(1-.001*N)^t), where N is the number of adjacent forests and t is the number of turns. I decided to use 100 turns even though there will probably be 130+ turns before we go into Enviro. With that assumption, any single tile surrounded by 4 forests has a 33% chance to regrow, 3 forests = 26%, 2 forests = 18%, 1 forest = 9.5%.

Doesn't sound that great, but then you have to look at the starting map and realize that even without chopping anything there are 12 tiles with one adjacent forest, 4 with 2 forests, 7 with 3 forests, and 2 with 4 forests. The composite of all those probabilities is 99.25%.

So basically, it's a certainty that we'll grow another forest by the time we need it. Also, there's one spot to chop in the opening BFC that will have forests on 4 sides, so if we chop that, it's a 99.5% chance to get back to 47 forests.

I think we still need to sparing with chopping, but 2 or maybe 3 early chops could give us an advantage over the other teams...

"With that assumption, any single tile surrounded by 4 forests has a 33% chance to regrow"

yep, I made the math and it seems so over a 100 turns.



Also:

Succession GOTM Progress and Results

( I'm not intending to press nor anything similar, it's just to make sure everyone has this relevant data. :D)
 
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