SGOTM6 - Xteam

[AlanH]

Note that you don't need RCP round an FP. Just a tight cluster of cities as close or closer to the FP than the nearest city is to the palace, so it's a disk not a ring. Rings are only relevant round the palace.

[edit] By the time we get 8 + 12 cities in two rings we'll be building 100% corrupt cities. We don't need 8+16 in the rings. We prolly can't get 20 in two rings, but we should be able to close to the OCN.

 

[leif erikson]

Note that you don't need RCP round an FP. Just a tight cluster of cities as close or closer to the FP than the nearest city is to the palace, so it's a disk not a ring. Rings are only relevant round the palace.

[edit] By the time we get 8 + 12 cities in two rings we'll be building 100% corrupt cities. We don't need 8+16 in the rings. We prolly can't get 20 in two rings, but we should be able to close to the OCN.

Of course you're right about the FP. In many ways our only big advantage to this software version is RCP. Leaders and Armies are relatively useless and we know what the scientific civs will get for their freebie. So I am trying to think of ways to maximize RCP because of the power we can get from it early in the game when we need units for conquest. Later, it becomes unimportant as food will create our shields through pop rushing.

Because leaders are relatively useless, I think Gyathaar is right about having to use a free palace jump and building a FP close to our capital as soon as we can. In light of that, I think we need to try to select our capital knowing that we are going to gabandon it up at some point. I think we need to agree to that "up front" as we develop our plans for initial builds and layout.

We put so much into Moscow in SGOTM05 we didn't want to give it up, and rightly so imho. I hopefuly learned something from that and am trying to apply it to this game.

I have no problem with the intial roster order. Setting this one up will require a lot of thinking as squares are revealed. Not that I can't think but I recognize when someone has better skills than I. Good luck Gyathaar, get us headed in the right direction!!

 

[Gyathaar]

Btw.. I notice both Team Offa and Team CDZ are using C3C.. so what team will be the strongest competition do you think? (ofcourse.. goal is to get the best date no matter what version.. )

 

[leif erikson]

I don't know. Team Smackster seems to be able to get in there as well. With a good plan, I think we can be in it too. All I know is that for me, this will be an interesting game because it is different.

I was thinking about Alan's post concerning number of cities and rings. I don't think we'll prolly get 20 cities in 2 rings as the terrain doesn't look very hospitable to that. However, we can use the corruption model to our advantage by building the original core tight and then, when we jump the palace, trying to keep the cities in the first ring whatever distance our second ring is from the original core. Of course, you all know that, but thought I would say it anyway.

 

[Gyathaar]

Team Smackster is on C3C too thou..
Ivan, tao and us are on vanilla, Peanut and RowAndLive are on Ptw

 

[AlanH]

My bets are on Offa. CDZ will probably play to honorable SG rules, whereas we know that Klarius for one will use every legal trick in the book.

trying to keep the cities in the first ring whatever distance our second ring is from the original core

Not quite. If we build the FP in the first core and jump the palace then the new palace will need to have cities far enough away that the FP has lots of cities as close or closer. The FP will not be in the centre of the first core, so a tight double ring is favorite. I'd like to try to dot map it, but I'd also like to get on with the next three of four crucial turns of SGOTM 5

[edit]Were you involved in our Mongols Jumpmaster SG? We did much the same there, with RCP 3 and 5, and chose an FP site that would maximise the number of cities within a radius 5 disk centred on it. Most AI capitals have radius 5 first rings, or can be adjusted to be so, so when we jumped the capital to an AI capital and reused their core this worked well.

 

[leif erikson]

No, I didn't play that one. However, I think that is a sound goal to shoot for. It would be nice to step right into a second core and have our first nice and productive.

I thought about trying to make a dot map, but there really isn't enough showing yet to do anything really meaningful. I think Gyathaar needs to play the first 20 turns and then we need to see where we are. Based upon all this discussion and his experience, I am confident he knows what were trying to do, unless he wants more discussion. That is never a problem.

@Alan - Good luck on those turns. Although we are way behind, it is still interesting to play it out, to me.

 

[AlanH]

Gator produced a roster listing for our team, no one has complained., and it puts our strong culture player up front to set the scene. It keeps players in the same timezone together (Gyathaar and I are in the European zone, the rest are US, I think?), which seems to work OK as it gives time for the other timezone to comment between sets.

Gyathaar UP
AlanH On deck
Tomoyo
leif erikson
WillowBrook
DJMGator13

if we keep up to the mark - 24 hours GOT IT, 72 hours total to POST turns (note to self ) we should be able to run twice round his roster before WillowBrook disappears mid-term. If it looks like she'll miss out we could do swaps to adjust nearer the time.

Any more discussion needed? Let's wait for an hour or so, then if we're all talked out Gyathaar could make a start.

 

[Gyathaar]

Well, I am home from work.. and Got it

My bets are on Offa. CDZ will probably play to honorable SG rules, whereas we know that Klarius for one will use every legal trick in the book.

Since you mentioned this.. how does stand when it comes to playing honorable or using every (legal) trick?
Personally I can go any way

 

[AlanH]

I asked this at the start of the thread, and only WillowBrook has responded. As I said, I'll do anything within the GOTM rules - the images on the screen are chessmen on a board as far as I'm concerned, so I have no problem with taking advantage of limitations in their programming. But I too can go either way if the team wants to try using something else.

WillowBrook mentioned a dislike of RoP rape, and asked if someone else can do that if it's needed. I confess I seldom use it, probably bcause I haven't seen enough advantage, but I'm about to do so big time in SGOTM5.

I'll use ship-hopping with a clear conscience if it'll get a unit where and when I want him to be.

I'll use a free palace jump, though I prefer jumping the palace with a leader because I have never got my head round the logistics and maths involved, so I've never tried it. But we've been encouraged to use it by the crippled leaders.

Resource disconnect? Sure, why not. We're playing with one hand tied behiind our backs as it is, so I see no reason to hook the other one to it.

 

[Gyathaar]

Hmm.. I notice an exploit I used in the HoF game that I always assumed was not allowed in GOTM...
The exploit where you go max negative in gold per turn (by 100% science/lux) and let a building/unit be disbanded every turn.
Now I see it isnt listed in allowed and disallowed exploits.. I assume it is not allowed?

 

[DJMGator13]

I do not think that is allowed in GOTM, negative cash research. You can use it as long as you have money in your treasury. Once your treasury is gone you are suppose to adjust your science level. It should be listed on the disallowed exploits in the normal GOTM thread.

As for other tactics, I game. I rarely use ROP rape unless it has been done to me and I have had it happen. I use ship chaining whenever I can. If you go thru the hassle of prepositioning ships I feel it is worthwhile. No more of an exploit than being able to transverse the continent in 1 turn via railroads.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm with Alan and consider this to be a big chess set. However, I do have some scrupples, not many. But the negative treasury trick would seem exploitive to me, but if someone presented very good reasons why we should use it, I might be convinced??

 

[Tomoyo]

Settler west does look like a really good choice, since we're gonna jump it. However, I'm leaning towards settler north because it's closer to the middle of the map, away from the tundra that we are seeing.

Also, I don't like to use ROP rape, never used ship chaining because I'm too lazy, and I'm okay with "dastardly" tactics, but I don't want to be backstabbing AIs left and right...

 

[AlanH]

The GOTM rule book would be as long as an encyclopedia if we tried to list everything. As Gator says, deliberate cash-negative operation of that kind is not allowed.

The catch-all is that a member of staff must be consulted before using a ploy that's not explicitly allowed/disallowed. I would recommend we check with m-b before doing anything dubious. Please note that the submission software also tracks some detectable cheats, incuding reloading and game editing.

 

[Mistfit]

Good to see the spam continue! Good luck to the new (and hopefully improved) Xteam!

This is the one I'd be worried about being on the Disallowed list:
Pop-rushing
In despotism and communism it is possible to use cities purely for unit rush building. Workers can be added to such a city and then the city can then use them to rush build units. This is disallowed, so do not create these kind of cities. Pop rushing one or two regular citizens to finish a building or to build a unit is within the rules and the spirit of the game. What is against the rules is joining workers to cities for the purpose of pop rushing.

 

[Gyathaar]

I dont think we should use it, but in end game we could run 100% lux to battle unhappiness from poprushing and drafting, not having to worry about making taxmen or building markets to make enough gold to support the buildings.

When you rush 50-60 culturebuildings per turn it is no big deal to loose one per turn

Its really hard to decide where to settle.. currently leaning towards 1 west.. this allows four 6 turns settler factories in capital plus ring 3, or two 6 turn and one 4 turn factory if the cow cant be irrigated.

Any big objections before I go ahead and do it?

 

[AlanH]

West is Ok with me. I never like wandering settlers if I can avoid it, as it gets you off to a bad start in relative power. Settling in place is too big a gamble if we can't reach that cow fast, but west one gets us up and running reasonably fast and saves on worker turns to irrigate the game. I don't think we'll miss that BG for quite a while.

 

[WillowBrook]

Sure, go west.

Good luck!

 

[WillowBrook]

This is the one I'd be worried about being on the Disallowed list:
Pop-rushing
In despotism and communism it is possible to use cities purely for unit rush building. Workers can be added to such a city and then the city can then use them to rush build units. This is disallowed, so do not create these kind of cities. Pop rushing one or two regular citizens to finish a building or to build a unit is within the rules and the spirit of the game. What is against the rules is joining workers to cities for the purpose of pop rushing.

I thought of commenting on this earlier, but the exploit that seems to be banned is building workers for the sole purpose of joining them and pop-rushing. I assume it doesn't cover naturally-grown population or joining workers/slaves that are no longer needed (e.g. after everything is RR) and popping them. As I understand it, we won't be popping workers built for no other purpose, so there shouldn't be a problem. However, I wasn't around for whatever discussion led to the ban, so I'm not sure what all the concerns were.