SGOTM4 - Team Bede

mad-bax

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SGOTM4 - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

Here is the start position.


Note: EVERYONE has to install the correct resource graphics whether or not they have played this scenario or GOTM before. If you haven't done it yet, you had better get a wriggle on.

The saves will be available once the timelock has been released tonight (19th September).

Here are some links you might find useful.

The original GOTM28 Announcement.
The Draft Constitution
The GOTM Reference Thread.
SGOTM4 - Maintenance Thread
Download latest Save.
Upload a Save.

This Months' sponsored variant is 5 City Challenge the rules for which are as follows.

1. You may not end a turn with more than 5 cities.

Team Leaders: It would be a good idea to PM your team mates to get them all checked in here as soon as is possible. ;)

Good luck everyone! :)
 
Checking in. I haven't played this GOTM, but this week I played a 5CC test game with India (20K win in 1902AD).

I have taken a quick look at the start position. There is definitely something NW,NW(wheat/sheep?) and also N,NW(game?). With the BGs S and E, I think we should settle NE. This keeps the forest available for chopping, which would disappear if we settle on the spot, and also the two BGs will be in the city radius after expansion. It also gets those two bonuses NW which may or may not be there (I'm sure they are).

Maybe the worker should move onto the mountain to get a good view of the surroundings? Or should we wait for our first warrior and let the worker start improving tiles?

I will post more when I have finished listening to the Jets game.
 
Checking in. I haven't played this GOTM either.

A thought on the variant. Its a rather loose interpetation of 5CC. I propose that we initially build two 'throw away' cities. We use these to build our initial settlers and workers and we can use some pop-rush to build military units. When we find an important resource we abandon the first of the 2 cities to keep under 5. We abandon the 2nd when we capture an important cities (ie: important wonders).

Thoughts on the start position. Worker to mountain and look around to see if there are any bonuses. If not then move the setler NE and settle.
 
I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with 5CC. I wasn't until I signed up for this SGOTM and then played a test game. I found this War Academy article to be very helpful:

5CC Guide by Charis

This is my first SG, but I followed team Smackster's thread from SGOTM3 (as they had the most posts), so I believe I understand the SG format. The reason they played quickly is because their roster was formed geographically, european time zone player followed by US time zone player. This allowed them to play more than one players turns per 24hrs. I propose something similar here, though I guess the final decision is bede's. (My third post and it sounds like I'm taking over :blush: ). For the record, I am in the BST time zone (GMT+1, Eastern+5, Pacific+8).

As I stated in the sign up thread, I am a comfortable Monarch player, though I do have a few wins on emperor. My move up to this level was greatly helped by Dianthus' CrpSuite MapStat utility, which meant I didn't have to go through the tedious process of checking the diplomacy screens every turn. I highly recommend it.

Looking forward to playing with you guys. I'll post some more game thoughts when we have all checked in.
 
As everyone so far, I have not played this GOTM either.

This is my third SG, so I have some experience with them. Monarch level without variant does not pose a challenge to me, although I cannot say I am confortable at emperor level.

I have never played 5CC. I have read a few 5CC SG and I tought 20K culture was the easiest victory condition. So, I read the 2 articles on 20K victory in the war academy. Then I saw the article on 5CC and read it also. It said that any victory condition, except 100K culture and domination, was possible. The key element is FOCUS. Therefore, I will be important to decide a victory condition pretty early.

As for fog gazing, I can never see anything. I would normally send the worker E to improve the tile but, because of the variant, I agree with sending the worker NW. The position of the capital is, heu, capital! :lol:

I will open the initial save to check who are the other civs and post a summary shortly.

Edit: Oups! It seems we do not have access to the initial save yet! At least, I do not see it anywhere.
 
Zakharov said:
My move up to this level was greatly helped by Dianthus' CrpSuite MapStat utility, which meant I didn't have to go through the tedious process of checking the diplomacy screens every turn. I highly recommend it..
Yes, I like MapStat, as well as Ainwood's CivAssist.

fbouthil makes a good point about wanting to perfect capital city placement, so I think sacrificing a couple of worker moves to move to the mountain would be worth it. Without anything in particular from the worker's view, a move to the NE for the settle for a forest chop remaining available seems good.

I haven't played a 5CC either. I think I read about someone winning a 5CC by 100k culture once (they had all five cities close to 20k, and they did have a 20k cultural victory the same turn, of course).
 
Looking at the test save, I see many custom resources:

Wool: luxury, +2f, +1sh, +1c, often near sheep & lamb
Lamb: +2f
Sheep: +2f, +1sh

Goats: +2f, +1sh, often near menudo & olives
Olives: +2f, +1c
(menudo not found in civilopedia)

Oysters: +2f, +1c, often near pearls & offshore rocks
Rocks: +1sh, +1c
(pearls not found in civilopedia)

Of course with only 5 cities, we probably won't profit from most of the new resources. But, IMHO, a city with wool, lamb & sheep would be excellent for the 20K culture victory...

I see that no one of the players that have checked in so far were in any of the SGOTM. How about renaming our team to "Team recruits" ? ;) At least Bede was in all SGOTM but it shows that our team definitely lacks SGOTM experience. That means we will have even more merits when we get both laurels! :D
 
As I stated earlier, I played a 5CC test game with India last week. I believe an early conquest victory is very difficult unless the map is a pangaea, as we will not have the infrastructure to move many troops across the water.

Only in the early game and the late game will our military be comparable to the other civs. During the middle ages it is hard to support a large military, because we will only have one or two productive cities. If one of these is shooting for 20K culture it needs to concentrate on wonders; not military.

Of course, the easiest way to get many wonders in one city will be to rush them with leaders. We therefore have a double-edged sword. If we concentrate on military, we must trust the RNG for leader production, but if we concentrate on building wonders and culture, we will be militarily weak - meaning we will be a big target for an AI dogpile. We need to decide early which way to go, then commit to it.

In order to get many resources our citites need to be well spaced out, then allow border expansion to fill the gaps. In my test game my cities were 6 to 8 tiles apart and I got all strategic resources except uranium and oil within my borders, plus three luxuries. Once our cities grow above size 12, trading for more luxuries becomes vital as we cannot afford to lose production by diverting resources to happiness.

For our research goals, I think we need to head towards Republic. As we have only core cities the military support cost will be outweighed by the extra commerce, provided we road all tiles that are worked.

Anyway, just some observations from playing a little 5CC. I'm sorry if I sound a bit negative. Btw, I like to explain myself well, so if my posts get a bit too long please let me know :)
 
Well don't I feel stupid. I played a test game with India as they were used in GOTM28, but I just loaded up the save and we get the Carthaginians :o

In that case: Carthage - Commercial/Industrious (Alphabet/Masonry)
Our UU is the Numidian mercenary (2/3/1) replacing spearmen, upgrades to muskets, costs 30 shields instead of 20 for spearmen.

With these traits we get less corruption, quick workers and an extra shield and commerce in size 7+ cities.

We couldn't ask for a better 5CC civ. Our workers can get us set up quickly, our cities will be extra productive later in the game, plus we get a strong defensive unit to ride out the tough early middle ages :thumbsup:

Our opponents are:
Civ -- Traits -- Techs -- UU + stats (replaces)
India Commercial/Religious CB/Alphabet War Elephants 4/3/2 (Knights)
Greece Scientific/Commercial BW/Alphabet Hoplites 1/3/1 (Spearmen)
Ottomans Scientific/Industrious Masonry/BW Sipahi 8/3/3 (Cavalry)
Romans Militaristic/Commercial WC/Alphabet Legionaries 3/3/1 (Swordsmen)
Babylonians Scientific/Religious BW/CB Bowmen 2/2/1 (Archer)
Persians Scientific/Industrious Masonry/BW Immortals 4/2/1 (Swordsmen)
Vikings Militaristic/Expansionist Pottery/WC Beserk 6/2/1 (Longbows)
Celts Militaristic/Religious WC/CB Gallic Swordsmen 3/2/2 (Swordsmen)
Germans Scientific/Militaristic BW/WC Panzer 16/8/3 (Tanks)
 
As for play order and the order the sun moves over the earth (at least until we have the right tech) we have:

GMT +1: Zakharov (England)
EST, GMT-4: Bede (Cape Cod, Mass, USA), fbouthil (Montreal, Can), MOTH (Southborough, Mass, USA)
CST, GMT-5: TimBentley (Bourbonnais, IL)

Personally, I get home at 5pm at which point I have exclusive responsibility for a 5 month old boy until about 7pm. I can usually pcik up a save between 7 and 9 and I play until 11pm usually. I can usually browse the web site some during work hours, but I cannot run the game at work. IE: if you post pictures I can comment. Weekends can be sketchy as I often travel to locations where I don't have internet access.

I do have a planned absence this coming weekend and will be gone to New York from Friday pm until Sunday pm for a wedding.

In the early game I imagine that we will want to keep to a rotation. Near the middle/end it is fine with me if Zakharov gets some extra turns to speed up game play.

Pending approval of the team and info about the time of day that everyone can play, I propose the following rotation:

Bede
fbouthil
TimBentley
Zakharov
MOTH

Note: I put myself last as I would usually upload a turn and log at about 11pm. If someone else could start a turn about that timeframe then they could be after me instead.

As far as game start, there is a rule that the 1st player plays until 3000 BC. There is no rule that screen shots and suggestions can not be made as we go. If Zakarov is willing and able then I would be happy having him start. As above Worker NW, Settler NE and then a screen shot? Unless there is a food bonus we won't grow until turn 10. What year is turn 10?
 
We have 9 opponents which means science will go faster. We will have to be careful about not triggering a GA too fast.

According to the 20K war academy article, our traits are not very good toward that goal. Ind is considered average and comm the worst (we won't have much corruption with 5 cities anyway). Oh well! Who said a SGOTM would be easy?
Zakharov said:
Anyway, just some observations from playing a little 5CC. I'm sorry if I sound a bit negative. Btw, I like to explain myself well, so if my posts get a bit too long please let me know :)
Don't worry about it, I tend to do the same thing from time to time. And MOTH too. :D

I would also like the opportunity for discussion with a screenshot after the worker does some hiking, but I would trust the first player to make the right choice if he decides otherwise. After all, there are no bad players in our team as far as I know (we all said we were monarch/emperor players on the sign-up thread).
 
fbouthil said:
Don't worry about it, I tend to do the same thing from time to time. And MOTH too. :D

I would also like the opportunity for discussion with a screenshot after the worker does some hiking, but I would trust the first player to make the right choice if he decides otherwise. After all, there are no bad players in our team as far as I know (we all said we were monarch/emperor players on the sign-up thread).

Don't I know it about the long windedness. I too would trust the 1st player to do the right thing.

I have always seemed to good at the initial build out but then I tend to just let my core and empire just run themselves. I tend to plan out my micro-management from screen shots when I should be working instead. :mischief:

My thoughts on the initial worker actions will be forthcoming. As for builds, I think we should build a settler before a granary. Maybe Warriorx3 then settler. As for initial research. I would suggest Writing on 10%, but I don't know what Writing on 100% would mean. This might be one of our few chances to get a slight tech lead.
 
The number of turns you take is a guide only. You can vary the number of turns you take to suit your own circmstances. The only requirement is that you do not skip, or reduce the number of turns a "weaker" player takes in order to avoid the weaker player taking difficult turns, or increasing the overall proportion if turns taken by your elite players. I would prefer it if you state in the thread somewhere how many turns per session you will be playing if it isn't 10. :)
 
Here is our minimap:
 

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Will be looking at the save right now.

How about this rotation:

Zakharov
fbouthil
TimBentley
MOTH
Bede

First round let's all take twenty, then tens.
 
I'm fine with kicking things off. Any complaints on moving the worker NW then posting a screenshot for discussion?

The alternative is to move the worker east to get started on roading/mining the BG on the river right away. Having done some fog gazing NW of the start position, I think the resources I guessed at have been changed or removed, as I believe the image in the sign-up thread is from the GOTM28 announcement, not from this save. That fog certainly looks different now :confused:
 
I recommend that everyone read this article for a guide to a 20K victory:

T-Hawk's 20K Article

Although written for Conquests and does not address the MGL rush tactic, it is an excellent primer on setting up for 20K

One of the things we need to keep in mind is the scoring which applies to the game and we need to make sure we keep our population as happy as possible as the system rewards total population and happiness. The other thing to keep in mind is the reward given for speed in the scoring system so the faster the better.

I would drop the settler right where he is. It will cost us the forest but it preserves two BG's in the first ring. Move the worker to the riverside BG for a mine and road then back through town to the other BG for a mine.

Two warriors and then a settler and chop the forest for the settler. First settler should go SE along the river.

City spacing should be as loose as is consistent with the terrain.

The civ traits do not give us a break on cultural buildings but we do get better commerce (often a stumbling block in XCC games) so we need to take full advantage of it. The commercial trait means we can push research hard in the early game when techs are cheaper and one or two gpt can make a real difference in the research rate.

Not knowing what changes m-b made to the map using my experience in GOTM play is probably not a help so I'm not even going to speculate.

Of the other nations in the game more than half are scientific (5) so expect a blistering tech pace. Pottery is less important to a 5CC so I would push to writing ASAP.

Housekeeping:
24hrs to post got it, 24hrs after to post (total 48hrs from time of posted save to posted save)
Requests for skips or swaps should be automatically honored. No need for confirmation (least of all from me)
Please post a rotation with your log, or at least a notification to the next player. (Keeps me from getting confused)
GTOM rules are in effect (Details)

Important
This is a co-operative enterprise. If at any time you need advice, save the game, post a save and screenshot, and ask for it. I am not shy about offering my opinion and I'm sure the rest of you are not either....

This will be fun...looking forward to a gold laurel for my "love me wall"
 
I can agree with plopping the settler where he is. And not having the worker look around. I don't think warrior, warrior, settler works out for the food needed.

Initial worker actions are: E (turn 0), Mine (1-3), Road (4-5), WS Mine (6-8), Road (9-10)

Warrior#1 will be built on turn 5. Warrior#2 will be build on turn 9. We grow on turn 10 and turn 20. I think we will be getting 5 shield per turn once we grow which would get the settler on turn 16 if we had enough food.

Given this:
+2 Food: I think we can build 4 warriors and then the settler if we have no food bonuses in the expanded range.
+3 Food: I assume that we will only get 3 or maybe 4 shields per turn.
3 spt: a. food by turn 17. Shields by 17 with Chop.
b. food by 18 and shields by 18 with no chop.
4 spt: food by 17. Sheilds by 17 by micro manage on turn 16 and extra shields on growth.
+4 Food: I assume that we will get just 3 sheilds. As Bede indicates, warrior, warrior, settler. We get enough food on turn 15 and enough shields on 16 with chop.

If we get an initial screen shot after settling then I can take a closer look at the exact sequence and plan more worker moves.
 
I think others have put forward good ideas for the opening, so I really have nothing to add there. I think writing could get done in a bit less than 40 turns at 100%, but I'm not sure. I'll have to be long-winded sometime later.
 
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