[BTS] SGOTM 25 Pre-Game Discussion and Announcement

[LowtherCastle]

I think it's mainly about the great snowball effect that having all those techs earlier would give.
I find it very difficult turning that effect into numbers

Well, it's easy to start with almost 10,000 in techs...

 

[Gumbolt]

• Culture Ministry: 100 points * the total culture of the top 3 cities/150,000 - Maybe 20 points for each 30k culture top 3 cities have in total? Or 10 points for each 15k. (I might double this to allow up to 200 points.)
  
• Diplomatic Ministry: 25 points for being AP leader, 25 points for being UN leader, 50 points for diplomatic victory votes: 25 points * AP victory votes % / 75%+ 25 points* UN victory votes % / 67% - 25 points for UN or AP leader. 100 points for UN or AP win. 25 points for leading vote. 25 points if above 75%.
  
• Civil Ministry: 100 points* (81-the sum of 9 ranks) /72
• Military Ministry: 30 points * population% / 35% + 30 points * Land area % / 60% + 40% * (destroyed civilization + vassal civilization )/ 8
  
• Science Ministry: 100 points * eras of all techs learned / 7 - I would suggest 1 point per tech researched. Advanced techs count too. That or x points per era reached.
  
• Economy Ministry: 100 points * cities with corporation / total cities (except barbarians) Keep it simple 2 or 4 points per corp spread. Plus 20? points for each corp founded.
  
• Construction Ministry: 100 points * wonders owned/25. (All wonders(world+national) count.) - There are abouut 50 wonders in the game. The maths you have worked out here is 4 points per wonder.

Points score for x million pop reached. Land percentage reached. E.g. 10m 20m 30m etc. Same for land percentages. Pop percentages. I didn't comment on the two most complicated worded ones. I would also offer a bonus for teams that gain 2 victory conditions in 1 turn.

 

[sossos]

Without huts and events, the golden laurel might be a shoe in for some team.


Here're some clarifications:

Military Ministry: 30 points * population% / 35% - Is it somewhere silently implied that Pop score is capped at 30? (With a no vassals conquest victory the team would have 100% population, or 30 points * 100% / 35% = 85 points.)

No silent imply. You can get more points than 30 from population. The only cap is the points of each ministry, which is 100.

What is meant by "vassal civilization"? Destroyed vassal or vassalized vassal?

Destroyed vassal= Destroyed civilization. Colonies are allowed and counted if possible.

Civil Ministry: 100 points* (81-the sum of 9 ranks) /72 - What is the sum of 9 ranks?

If you are ranked No. 1 for all 9 categories, the sum of 9 ranks is equal to 9. Then you get all 100 points.

Techs. I assume by eras you mean ancient, classical etc. Not all of the techs researched.

Yes, by era. If you miss one tech in each of the 7 eras, you get 0 point.

I agree needs clarified - not sure why you would divide by a percentage

If population%=70%, then population%/35%=2. You get 60 points from population.

Would it be derailing too much asking Sossos, where the Mao quote is taken from ?

I don't know the exact source, but I think it explains why Mao can succeed from a certain point of view.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If you are ranked No. 1 for all 9 categories, the sum of 9 ranks is equal to 9. Then you get all 100 points.

I don't understand what categories you are talking about.

When you say civil ministry, I think of the civics. There are five groupings of civics with five possibilities in each. But I don't see any sort of ranking between them. Somehow, I think you must be thinking of something completely different when you say civil ministry.

 

[WastinTime]

I think you must be thinking of something completely different when you say civil ministry

I think he means Demographics screen. You want to try to be #1 in all 9 of those categories.
I love that this ministry would make me look at an area of the game that I've never explored--like 'approval rating'
However, aren't you just giving 200 points to conquest? (100 from military and 100 civil) (Why does the best strategy always seem to be "Kill them all!"? )

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I've added a link to this announcement and the sign up thread in all SGOTM24 Team threads.

 

[sossos]

I think he means Demographics screen. You want to try to be #1 in all 9 of those categories.
I love that this ministry would make me look at an area of the game that I've never explored--like 'approval rating'
However, aren't you just giving 200 points to conquest? (100 from military and 100 civil) (Why does the best strategy always seem to be "Kill them all!"? )

Yes, Demographics screen.

Someone loves "kill them all" and someone doesn't, but for this map, I'm not sure. Maybe AP + culture can also be an option to reach 420 fast.

 

[Fippy]

Culture seems very undervalued, for a game that will most likely be fast (starting with lots of stuff) having 3x5000 culture would already be much..but that's only 10 points.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Culture seems very undervalued, for a game that will most likely be fast (starting with lots of stuff) having 3x5000 culture would already be much..but that's only 10 points.

There's always espionage culture...

 

[LowtherCastle]

On the new BUFFY, the HOF isn't making it mandatory till March 2018. Wouldn't it be better to play it safe for this SG?

 

[kcd_swede]

In addition to my above questions, my comments on the scenario are this.

1. I'm against huts and events.
2. Try to make the early religion thing fair to all teams.
3. Deity bonuses as described are so turbo-charged that winning this SG on the two lower levels is probably impossible. Explaining further why I see it that way would be spoilerish, but I can see why sossos thought everyone could win this at deity.
4. I like the points challenge to this scenario.

As to #3 above... as I understand, the Laurels have nothing to do with in-game score, but rather reaching the 420 points from the different categories in the fastest way. I would not discard the Emperor option out of hand... but yeah, all things move faster the higher level you are at, and getting bnus for playing at higher level... requires some thought. Maybe this is so many conditions that Civ skills are not the deciding factor, but analutical skills. OTOH, the more civ know-how, the better chance your analytics work out. In any case, I think this one is decided before the first turn is played.

 

[Deckhand]

Some topics we can discuss in this thread:
1. Goody Huts
2. Events
3. Religions

Assume Huts are removed/disabled; Events are disabled; and all Holy Cities/Religions are preassigned.
I would welcome discussion in the other direction. No need for additional agreement.

4. Immortal and Deity bonuses

What do you think of handicapping teams? (They do it in bowling and golf etc).
Instead of basing the additional stuff on the level, base it on the team!
Everyone gets same level but not same starting techs and units.

Spoiler suspicious :

what would kcd_swede and I need to be able to beat lowthercastle and wastintime?

Thoughts?

5. Scoring

I agree with comments that this is real strength of scenario, causing teams to look at more things than just how fast they can achieve victory.
Are they all just results of fast expansion or are there some real trade offs?

8. BUFFY version.

Yeah, we should probably keep to BUFFY 3. Comments still welcome.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Yeah, we should probably keep to BUFFY 3

I understand and appreciate the hesitation (would suck if a game breaking bug was discovered 2 months in) - would love to see the testing a SGOTM would give it though!

 

[LowtherCastle]

As to #3 above... as I understand, the Laurels have nothing to do with in-game score, but rather reaching the 420 points from the different categories in the fastest way. I would not discard the Emperor option out of hand... but yeah, all things move faster the higher level you are at, and getting bnus for playing at higher level... requires some thought. Maybe this is so many conditions that Civ skills are not the deciding factor, but analutical skills. OTOH, the more civ know-how, the better chance your analytics work out. In any case, I think this one is decided before the first turn is played.

Note to mapmaker and admins: I'm no longer certain that deity is the best option.

 

[LowtherCastle]

What do you think of handicapping teams? (They do it in bowling and golf etc).
Instead of basing the additional stuff on the level, base it on the team!
Everyone gets same level but not same starting techs and units.

Spoiler suspicious :

what would kcd_swede and I need to be able to beat lowthercastle and wastintime?

Thoughts?

Fippy's team is just as good as WT's team if not better. Everything you need to know about WT is here. (Especially noteworthy is his exercise regime.)

I agree with comments that this is real strength of scenario, causing teams to look at more things than just how fast they can achieve victory.
Are they all just results of fast expansion or are there some real trade offs?

Definitely real trade-offs. Spoilerish to elaborate.

~~~

Another question about ministry points: Are they calculated on the turn the victory message is shown, as usual?

 

[Fippy]

Yup, no team bonus or handicap please
Would not feel like a real win this way, i cannot tell who is "better" but it's certainly not a difference on paper that would call for bonuses.

 

[Gumbolt]

Will the saves for Emperor, immortal and Deity on the Ai side start with the same number of units and settlers? Or should we assume differences here? I agree on no team bonuses.

I also wonder how many teams will really use corps here. Game is designed for conquest. Too many points for land/military. Even wonders could easily get you 50-75 points by sheer dumb luck if the Ai build enough. Same for AP. Whoever gets conquest would get points for AP too.

I think forcing 2 winning condition makes the game more interesting. 1-2 more free techs on emperor would spice up the options.

 

[WastinTime]

The real problem with the proposed handicap system is that you drain all the fun out of the game at Emperor level. No bomber to play with, no GSpy, GPro, pacifism, caste, StateProp, Kremlin, math chops, and a dozen other things. The EMP save just seems to be missing the whole uniqueness of the scenario; it's very much a 'regular' game of Civ.
The bomber is really different I'd hate to miss a chance to play with it...even if it ends up being underwhelming.

I know how it feels because they sometimes did a similar thing in XotMs back in the days when there were challenger saves. IIRC, They'd give some fun twist to the adventurer or contender saves and suck the fun out of the challenger save.

 

[lymond]

It’s come to mind that sossos probably deliberately derped Emperor. If I recall this was supposed to be a Deity game initially. So I doubt he really intends for anyone to choose Emp. Still think it is silly to have multiple difficulties in a competition. If nothing changes in that regard, I’d recommend after the teams form that they all agree to play one difficulty only. - IMM or Deity.

 

[WastinTime]

I’d recommend after the teams form that they all agree to play one difficulty only. - IMM or Deity.

That makes sense, so let me pitch Deity by addressing some of the usual criticisms of that level.

In a normal game, the biggest advantage the Deity AI has IMO, is the start. They get extra settler and workers which means they don't have to spend 12-15 turns building a worker. That jump start means they grab land and virtually all the early wonders. Well, none of that is a problem in this scenario. We've been given some land and we're already surrounded...even if you play at EMP.

Deity AI techs fast. Yes, but we've been given a ton of advanced tech. We could even trade that tech if the AI was not given those same freebies, so having the AI tech fast makes the game easier to finish faster. They do drive a bit harder bargain on those tech trades, but that's fair since they're already being stupid enough to trade the human tech as it is.
Cities grow faster, workers improve faster. Again, all things that can boost your speed.

It's not like the AI is more aggressive at Deity. Or smarter. Or harder to Please (Diplo.) The only 'scary' thing left that I can think of is their production goes from 80% cost down to 60%. So something that costs 80 on EMP would be 60 hammers. Doesn't sound like a big deal to me...some might disagree, but remember, Deity AI's don't build more units. They'll still defend a city with 2 units. I think this minor boost in their production gives them a small fighting chance...instead of getting steamrolled as usual.
And again, similar to having the AI help you tech faster, they will also build you free forges, granaries, courthouses, etc.

Seems like sossos did intend to create a Deity game and make it approachable by players of all skilled levels.