SGOTM5 - Team jeffelammar

[grahamiam]

You will pop eqWorkers from huts. Since you cannot build eqWorkers there is no way to prevent them being popped AFAIK. I've tried.

all those changes are quite interesting. i'm curious how this will turn out as i didn't realize you were going for such radical changes to the rules. not complaining, as i'm willing to try pretty much anything.

 

[mad-bax]

Well - it's an experiment. A philosophical discussion is fine as far as it goes, but I just wanted to try some ideas to see what works and what doesn't. In the first spoiler you will be able to discuss who got what from huts. There are reasons for all the changes - but this game is carrying them all so that we can go through an informed decision making process on what we want in an SGOTM. I have no axe to grind either way. This was just an attempt by me to reduce the differences between PTW and vanilla and reduce the impact of luck in the early game. Whether you want to keep any of the changes is up to you lot.

 

[grahamiam]

Well - it's an experiment.

yep, and i'm a willing lab rat i've actually done some playtests for various sg rule mod's before, so if you ever need a hand in the future, feel free to pm me and i'll do all i can to help out

as far as this game goes

I agree on researching writing and map making, but I'm going to hope there is a land connection to some other civs. I'm not good at war-making, and I don't use ships well. If even our first wars have to be conducted over water, with only one city to supply the troops, I'm going to be very uncomfortable.

writing, then MM seems fine if there are no land bridges. with 14 other civs, we really need to get out there and find people. after that, i'd just do the cheapest tech available. we need to get our capitol up to pop 12 quickly, so some extra workers can improve the tiles and then be rejoined to the city once done to speed along the growth.
as far as warmongering goes, we are all going to need to throw out our builder hats. the goal is conquest and we'll need to bring a big hammer to go for this, i propose one 1 or 2 archers for barb purposes, then build warriors for the mighty warrior->sword upgrade path. we need to keep an eye on expenses so we don't overcompensate and mess up our research so maybe we wait on building warriors till after MM is learned. Once we get a galley or 2 out, i'm sure we'll find someone willing to sell BW and IW to us. of course, if we're not alone, this goes out the window

 

[mad-bax]

I'll pass you on the bic/bix files. I'm currently trying to find a solid solution to the scientifc civ question. If I can do that then I'm done fiddling I think.

Currently the only ideas I have are :-


..to add a tech to each age which is a pre-requisite for all the others.
.. to make one of the existing techs in each age a prerequisite for the others

I don't like either of these as it messes with the game mechanics.

 

[denyd]

I'm thinking we might consider literature before map making. That would let the capital build (dare I say it) the Great Library. Being marooned (if we are), is likely to put us in a tech hole. Getting those couple of techs from huts, will keep us current for a while, put I'm afraid by the time we find anyone, they might be all the way to pikes.

Just as an aside, I wonder if any of the teams settled on a non-coastal tile. They'll be stuck on the island waiting for someone to build them a coastal city before they can start their campaign of conquest.

 

[grahamiam]

ah, the infamous difference between civ3 and ptw, the free tech's... i'll help as much as i can. email is linked to my sig or pm them to me. i can start testing tomorrow night, my time, as i'm up in 3 tonight. if you have any specific instructions (civ to play, level to play, map type, etc), let me know in the pm/email. now stop spamming this thread

 

[grahamiam]

I'm thinking we might consider literature before map making. That would let the capital build (dare I say it) the Great Library. Being marooned (if we are), is likely to put us in a tech hole. Getting those couple of techs from huts, will keep us current for a while, put I'm afraid by the time we find anyone, they might be all the way to pikes.

oh no, not again i'd really shy away from that, though i don't mind going lit to get a library in town, i just think we should find out where the iron is located 1st. a regent ai, even if it is ahead, won't have a lot of unit support so i can't imagine it's towns being defended by more than 4 units. cat's and swords will overcome pikes for sure.

 

[denyd]

My thought would be research writing & then literature. Start building the Great Library while researching Map Making. If someone builds the Great Library, hopefully, we'll already have discovered Map Making and can switch to the Great Lighthouse.

Based on the lack of any signs of AI, unless there's a narrow connector, I suspect that this is a Gilligan game.

 

[grahamiam]

ok, sorry for the harsh response. it'll be a team vote, of course. i guess we use the pyramids as a prebuild.

 

[CKS]

I think that at regent we don't need the great library. If we are the only ones who are isolated, I still think we can trade ourselves out of a hole fairly quickly, and if there are other isolated civs, that gives us other civs in the same boat to trade with.

I don't think we can afford to invest the entire production of our empire into the great library. That is a lot of shields that could go elsewhere. We need to go to war fairly early to capture some cities. We won't be ready if we build the library early. If we are going to delay it, we might as well just take it from whoever builds it, or build it after we have some other cities.

 

[denyd]

My guess is we've got 30-40 turns before we meet anyone else (unless there is a land link). Right now we are at our limit of unit support (4) and from now on units will cost gold, which will reduce research which will extend the time before we can complete research. Once the northern scout has completed the western coast survey, we should bring him back to Moscow and disband him. The same for the souther one once his work is done.

I'm thinking we build one more worker to assist in improving the land and then based on how long until another border expansion either form a furs colony or join up in Moscow. I'd be surprise if writing is less than 25 turns, so the next 2+ turn sets are going to be complete the barracks, build a worker, unit, unit, unit, by then we'll have discovered writing, and will have most of Moscow improved and will be ready to join the workers back. That's the time we'll need to make the literature/bronze working/map making decision.

 

[grahamiam]

i was actually thinking MM for the GLight might work as well. if this an arch, with far flung islands, the Great Lighthouse will be much more valueable that the Great Library. as CKS notes, we will not be hard pressed to catch up in tech @ regent. imho, it would be more beneficial to get contacts with all 14 civs as early as possible rather than wait for them to research stuff for us. however, let's finish exploring our part of the world before we decide whether or not we want to do this. if this is our final landmass, we may be better off palace jumping and investing a minimum amount in the capitol

 

[CKS]

True, without knowing whether we are isolated, we are planning pretty far ahead of our data. I think that we will find sombody else on our island, but perhaps far away. If there isn't, then the course of the game will be very different for those who settle by the sea and those who don't. (I haven't looked at the save, only the screenshot; maybe all reasonable places to settle are on the ocean, in which case my reasoning doesn't hold up.) Anyway, we won't have to make a final decision on what to do after writing until we've done some more exploring. By then we ought to know if we're alone.

 

[jeffelammar]

Sorry it took so long to respond. It's been a hectic day here at work and this is the first chance I've had to look in.

Looks like you guys have hashed out a lot of it already.
1. Nice job Denyd. This is one ugly set of territory and you grabbed the best spot.

2. Good thing we went for the variant. I wouldn't want to build any more cities here anyway

3. The Lighthouse is going to me worth a lot given all this coast we have to go through to get away from our capitol. Given Differential Naval movement it will allow us to move 3 instead of 2.

4. I agree that we shouldn't worry to much about getting the Great Library. To me Map Making and some galleys are a higher priority.

5. If our scout finds an opponent to the east, I would suggest using workers to road towards them instead of adding them back. Moscow will grow pretty quick anyway, and the ability to move troops quickly toward the enemy would be a huge boost.

6. If we are alone, then I think Great Lighthouse is the priority. A Great Library boost would be nice, but should not be necessary.

For any of the current strategies we need Writing, so let's revisit the post writing research after the next couple turn sets.

 

[grahamiam]

Preflight check: boy, what a crappy landmass. Looks like the other 2 directions had cows (one with cow + game), while ours had the wheat + forest game.

T1: 2950BC move scouts

IBT:

T2: 2900BC Igor (scout to the E) sees a hut. Adjust sci slider to get an extra 5g

IBT: wheel -> writing; Moscow barracks -> spear

T3: 2850BC Pop hut to get WC. MM sliders for happiness (writing in 28T). Our people want to build the HE, I think they’re delusional. MM town to get +5spt and maximum gold.

T4: 2800BC move scouts, move workers as they’ve roaded the mined river BG.

T5: 2750BC Igor finds the end of the island to the E.

T6: 2710BC move scouts again

IBT: spear -> archer

T7: 2670BC MM lux slider

T8: 2630BC MM lux slider for growth

T9: 2590BC move scouts

IBT: archer -> HE (GLight prebuild)

T10: 2550BC Move workers to road game so we get extra gold for research.
Igor the scout is headed to the western black area; Ivan the scout is checking out the northern black area.
HE is a prebuild for whatever we want to do next. It’s worth 200 shields and GLight is 300 shields. Imho, GLight is the wonder we want to have for this game.

 

[jeffelammar]

I don't have much to say. I agree with using the Epic as a lighthouse pre-build.
I think we might want to pump out a couple chariots or archers first. Barbarians could get to be a big problem if there are any. (And I'm betting there will be)

We could disband our scouts as soon as they finish the edges of our land to reduce unit cost.

One question. Do we chop the forest and irrigate it? If we were able to build settlers, I would say absolutely, and even so I think we should. There are other forests, plus the hills that we can use for shield production and we need to grow Moscow fast to accelerate our self research path.

I'm flying to CA tomorrow to spend TG with my family. I was going to take the laptop anyway, so I'll probably play on the plane and then upload from their house tomorrow night. I leave around 2 PM Mountain time, so comments should be in by then.

 

[grahamiam]

if you chop, you must do something other than HE. right now, the tile is basically a mined bonus grass. not sure if we want to give up those spt but extra food is always helpful (right now we are +3fpt). war chariots do sound good.

we can either disband the scouts or put them on high lookout points to try to find a boat that wanders by. however, that won't be for a long time so we're probably better off disbanding them after the fog is cleared. this all will delay our prebuild by a turnset but that may be better in the end. I was originally hoping that we could time prebuild such that as soon as we researched MM, we could switch over to GLight and get it within 5 turns. that still may be possible if we crank up the population.

 

[CKS]

I'm inclined to chop the forest, but either way is okay with me. Definitely we want the lighthouse, and it was nice of mad-bax to give us the heroic epic as a prebuild. I also agree about the ickiness of the landmass we are on.

Good luck, jeff. Find something nice for us, if any such things exist.

 

[jeffelammar]

Heya-

Just wanted to let you know. Thanksgiving travel got a bit hectic. I'll be playing my turns tonight and posting by early tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

 

[mad-bax]

I'm sorry guys, but I have found a bug in the PTW version of the game. Please take a break for a while so that I can get it fixed. I hope I can sort it out quickly.

I really am very sorry for the inconvenience but it appears that I didn't spend enough time playtesting the PTW version since all the big changes were in 1.29f.