SGOTM4 A New Beginning - Maintenance Thread

This thread will be used as the discussion and maintenance thread for this game. Since Alanh has automated much of the process there is not the need for two threads. The thread will be used for discussions about rules, procedures, bugs and anything else that is directly relevent to the game.

No Spoiler information will be tolerated in this thread

The first comment to make in this thread is that all teams are playing the variant.

Both awards will still be offered.

mad-bax,

A question on the interpretation of the variant:

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

For example, if you have 5 cities and you are offered a rival city by culture flip, can you take that city and disband it before pressing end turn, or would you have to click the 'rebuff the rebels' option? ie. Can you temporarily go to 6 cities?

From the wording, I assume we are playing a relaxed 5CC, but I just want to clarify this point.

Thanks in advance.

I understand you can go to any number of cities during a turn. The only rule is you must have no more than 5 cities at the point when you press next turn.

AlanH is correct Zakharov. :)

Our starting save (team offa) says we are Catharge.

Our starting save (team offa) says we are Catharge.

SURPRISE!!!!! [party] [party] :lol: :lol:

I'm guessing we all now have the answer to the barb puzzle. :)

I wonder what else has changed?

Everything has changed!!! Mwhahahaha! If only you had solved the barb puzzle, you would be privy to all the secret nuances of this outlandish game!
:mischief: :crazyeye:

is differential naval movement on or off?

I'm guessing we all now have the answer to the barb puzzle. :)
There were barbs in that game? :crazyeye:

When I check the civlopedia for resources I get:

FILE NOT FOUND

art\civlopedia\icons\resources\goatssmall.pcx.

Version is ptw 1.27f

Forgot to install the gotm graphics modpack then.

Game setting question:
In the civilopedia for this month, it claims you can trade maps with MapMaking. In the game announcement for GOTM 28 it claims we get it with Navigation. Which is it, or do we have to guess? Also where is Contract Trading?

Thanks

The Game settings are the same as for the original GOTM, and I provided a link to that page in the first post of the game thread. The Civilopedia is the generic one made for gotm20 ish IIRC. and isn't altered AFAIK from game to game.

FWIW I have nearly completed a stable mod for SGOTM, which is basically the GOTM mod which requires no unit downloads for PTW and only the "PTW equivalency" downloads for 1.29f. When it is done, then all the SGOTM games will be from gotm maps imported into the mod, and so the same in game rules will apply for every game, even if this differs from the original.

At this time I will go through the Civilopedia and updated it in line with the SGOTM mod. It would be helpful if people who find discrepencies could let me know as I suspect it will take an age for me to do it by myself.

Forgot to install the gotm graphics modpack then.

No I did not forget that. I installed them and used the test save as mentioned. I see the correct resources, the problem lies in the civlopedia. Any more help?

grs: you may have missed an earlier post by me, which is my fault, not yours. The original download did not include any graphics, apart from the resources. This meant that the civilopedia crashes the game if you try to access the resources section. It is my fault (again) because I just plain forgot to include them in the download pack in my rush to get everything done on Sunday night.

The download pack has been corrected, and if you go back to post 2 and download the new one with a "b" suffix, then you will have the correct graphics and a Civilopedia that doesn't crash the game. Some of the entries in the Civilopedia are out of date, but will be corrected - eventually.

Ok, nothing to blame on you. I just had to reload and replay turns and what really angered me is that I played them worse, because I thought I had already adjusted things and therefore forgot to do them again, but that is my own fault. Thanks for the help.

The Game settings are the same as for the original GOTM, and I provided a link to that page in the first post of the game thread. The Civilopedia is the generic one made for gotm20 ish IIRC. and isn't altered AFAIK from game to game.


Sounds good. As I didn't play GOTM in this era, I wasn't sure of the state of things here. Thanks for the clarification.

The more observant of you may have noticed that your team colours in the score graph have changed as a result of the arrival of grayarea in the lists. This is because the colours are assigned alphabetically.

Of course, this only affects those teams that have rushed off and started playing already :rolleyes:

So when are our in game team colors going to match our score sheet team colors? That would be really :cool:

So when are our in game team colors going to match our score sheet team colors? That would be really :cool:
Yeah, M-B and I were wondering what to do with our spare time :rolleyes:

A question on the modification of the rules. What are the advantages of the Great Wall in this game?

In [ptw], it doubles the effectiveness of walls and gives a bonus vs. barbs. In [c3c], it still gives the barb bonus, but places walls in every city instead of doubling their effectiveness. The rule change page for GOTM28 only states that the GW now gives free walls. Has the double effectiveness been removed?

Thanks in advance. :)

Have any of the civilizations' traits been altered (ie removing scientific)?

Great Wall gives free walls in every town on the same continent.
No Civ traits have been altered in this game.

The only rule change I made for SGOTM4 was to make iron inexhausible.

I noticed on the score sheet that in table form, then exact scores have been removed and replaced by the word "submitted". Is this an error, or a new feature? If a feature, then what is the point in still giving the scores in graphical form, or in the ranking table above. If you want to keep people from getting the scores in the table, they can still get them by checking the rankings table more often.

Obviously, I'd like to see the scores in the table returned. Thanks. :)

No Civ traits have been altered in this game.

According to CivAssist there is a Civ with a changed trait.

What's CivAssist and does it have spoiler information in it? Sounds like it does.

What's CivAssist and does it have spoiler information in it? Sounds like it does.
CivAssist is Ainwood's tool and he claims it's spoiler free.
But it shows the real traits of the civs you know.

I noticed on the score sheet that in table form, then exact scores have been removed and replaced by the word "submitted". Is this an error, or a new feature? If a feature, then what is the point in still giving the scores in graphical form, or in the ranking table above. If you want to keep people from getting the scores in the table, they can still get them by checking the rankings table more often.

Obviously, I'd like to see the scores in the table returned. Thanks. :)
Apologies ... You caught some work in progress ;)

CivAssist is Ainwood's tool and he claims it's spoiler free.
But it shows the real traits of the civs you know.
Very cool. I need to check this out. Thanks.

Apologies ... You caught some work in progress ;)

The "work in progress" is now published.

In order to reduce the spoiler effect of the progress page we've decided to limit visibility of teams' progress and only show scores and game victory/defeat status before a cutoff date that's 20 turns after the date reached by the least advanced team. The cutoff date affects the scores shown in the graph, and those in the detailed table of submissions.

This is an attempt to avoid the effect seen in previous games, when an early team finish set the target to beat, affecting the way the other teams played.

As a small compensation for having reduced your visibility in this way, I have split the team summary into two sections for Variant and Non-variant teams, and added "All" checkboxes to the sections to allow you to exclude either set of teams. This has little effect in the current game, of course, where all teams are playing for the sponsored variant.

As ever, your comments will be welcomed. Now where's the :ducks for cover: smilie ?

I think this is an excellent idea Alan. In every SGOTM going back to the first one we played as one of the Japanese tribes (Oda?, GOTM 24?), there has been some spoiler deduction from the other team's score. I know everyone plays differently when you know what the competition is up to, regardless of the game.

As a small compensation for having reduced your visibility in this way, I have split the team summary into two sections for Variant and Non-variant teams
Looks nice overall :goodjob:
As I understand the rules the variant teams compete also for the green laurels.
So a table for the non-variant teams alone is not quite correct. It doesn't show on SGOTM3 that Team Smackster had the second best result towards the green.

@Klarius: I'm aware of the problem, but couldn't see a way to present performance in both categories without confusing the heck out of everyone. Suggestions welcomed?

@Klarius: I'm aware of the problem, but couldn't see a way to present performance in both categories without confusing the heck out of everyone. Suggestions welcomed?

Well, what do we see here, First, X-Team stole Golden Laurel from Team Smacster and now we denied second place for Green Laurel....

Is that a jelaousy, or what? :rolleyes:

SGOTM 3 is not finished yet - there are some teams still playing. Until then it's a little premature to present final placings.

I think the challenge is that the page is used both for progress reporting and management of saves, and to present the final team achievements in a completed game.

Well, what do we see here, First, X-Team stole Golden Laurel from Team Smacster and now we denied second place for Green Laurel....

Is that a jelaousy, or what? :rolleyes:
I would rather think that we earned it, at least I hope so. ;) Of course, the old addage is that where you sit determines what you see!! :D
Suggestions welcomed?
Since all the teams are eligible for the Green Laurel, why can't we simply list them all. The two Laurels are different awards for the same competition. The Green any competing team can earn while the Gold can only be awarded to a team that competes for the variant, so only variant teams need be listed. I'll admit that the page will get a little long, but, so what.

BTW - Great job Alan, I like the way it looks and it cleanly conveys the scoring info. As always :goodjob:

AlanH!! I like the changes you've made, it makes the competition better. :goodjob:

I wish there was a way for the team who finishes game early to be able to see graphs and scores of other teams still playing.

And You right, SGOTM3 is not over, but if we wait for teams that dragging the game for months before publishing full graphs and tables, teams who finish first may lose interest to the game.

I'm resisting issuing passwords for access to progress information, which seems to be the only way to allow teams to see selective information for slower teams. Of course, you could chill out and play a little slower :mischief:

I think Madame la Guillotine is already sharpening her blade in readiness for a swift and merciful end to SGOTM3. It will only have "dragged out" for about 10 weeks, which is not really so bad.

I think Madame la Guillotine is already sharpening her blade in readiness for a swift and merciful end to SGOTM3. It will only have "dragged out" for about 10 weeks, which is not really so bad.

I will dedicate my prayers to those victims of Madame la Guillotine....
RIP :)

Well we have discussed how long the SG's should last, and I think 10 weeks for SGOTM3 was probably 2 weeks too long. The Guillotine will fall on Friday, but I hope the remaining teams will continue to the bitter end.

I would also take the opportunity to thank Alan once again for making this such a proffessionally run event. The recent changes to the downloads page are great. :thumbsup:

I'm resisting issuing passwords for access to progress information, which seems to be the only way to allow teams to see selective information for slower teams.
How about a link placed in every team thread and selecting the shown information via the referer (or an id put into the link).
That would also allow lurkers to see the info when they go via the thread of the leading teams.

Just an idea, to think about if you're bored sometime and don't know what to do. It's fine with me as it is.

I want to raise a question bothering me:
Quite a number of us have played GOTM29 and thus have a varying degree of map knowledge in our brains. Is it o.k. to use the knowledge from GOTM29 in our exploration?
In consequence: May players that did not play GOTM29 study the respective spoilers?
In consequence: May people download final GOTM29 saves and study them for learning the map?
Assuming of course, that there are no small but significant changes ....

without being an authority I'd say: yes, no, no.

I'd be shocked if mad-bax didn't change the map a bit. We already know that he changed the civs and the resources.

Yeah, seems great fun to me, start a thread, watch people think, gaze and calculate for some days, then simply change the stuff around so they can start over again :goodjob:

How about a link placed in every team thread and selecting the shown information via the referer (or an id put into the link).
That would also allow lurkers to see the info when they go via the thread of the leading teams.

Just an idea, to think about if you're bored sometime and don't know what to do. It's fine with me as it is.
Good idea, thanks :thumbsup:. If a competitor tries going via a rival team thread they run the risk of being spotted by our ever-vigilant band of staff and mods. I think the referer is safer, as that can't be replayed from a bookmark, unlike an ID in the URL. And I already have the team thread references in the database to apply to this approach. I'll think about it some more and discuss it with MB.

Don't hold your breath, though. I have some other priorities. :rolleyes:

Hi,

I had to download and install the patches for vanilla in order to play.

I downloaded the test save and it looked OK, I saw the sheep.

However now I am playing for real, I still see sheep where I should but I see aluminium where I should see spices, and perls where I should see cattle!

Any ideas?

I PM'd Grayarea about his problem.

In an attempt not to be too predictable, the changes I make to previous GOTM games will be varied. It is allowed to use your previous map knowledge, and it is allowed to read the spoilers from the original game - since it is not a practicable proposition to prevent it. You are NOT allowed to discuss spoiler knowledge with your team mates, but you may only use it on your turns.

The risk that you take of course is that I have changed the map, resource locations, civs or awarded civs extra units at the start or some other mechanism to make the use of spoiler knowledge foolhardy.

The choice is yours I guess, and how you want to play the game.

The next game FYI will be a new map, but using this ruleset essentially, so the spoiler issues rased here may never surface again. The reason for this is that I cannot be convinced that having a "similar" game played twice does not affect gameplay the second time round, and I believe that this is probably a bad thing on the whole.

Looking to the future, I intend to have a single stable mod for SGOTM into which any "previously played" games will be imported. Some games will be based on previous games, but many will be completely new. But they will all be played with the same ruleset.

I am drawing up a proposal which I will put to the GOTM staff, and if accepted, will implement in the new year.

Grayarea: it sounds to me like you are using the resources from GOTM instead of SGOTM. I think you may have actually been looknig at goats instead of sheep. The additional zip file that contains the resources should be downloaded from post 2 of this thread. The instructions in post 2 should be followed carefully.

If this is not your problem, then please PM me, preferably with a screenshot of an area which shows the incorrect resources. Issues like these can always be solved - please don't panic and start playing about with your civ installation. We will fix it.

I PM'ed mad-bax about the changed civ trait.
He is refusing to post it, but said that I should do if I feel like it.
He used the argument that he didn't change it, but Ainwood. I don't see any point in this.
I think changed civ traits should be always mentioned in GOTM and SGOTM, especially now that Ainwood's CivAssist is out and everybody able to use it (not our Mac friends), can legally find out about it, after meeting the civs.
I don't want to mention the name of the Civ here, because I don't know, if everybody knows them already.
But I want to say that one of the scientific civs is not scientific.
I advise every team to have somebody look it up with CivAssist, as soon as they meet them.

Good idea, thanks :thumbsup:. If a competitor tries going via a rival team thread they run the risk of being spotted by our ever-vigilant band of staff and mods. I think the referer is safer, as that can't be replayed from a bookmark, unlike an ID in the URL. And I already have the team thread references in the database to apply to this approach. I'll think about it some more and discuss it with MB.

Don't hold your breath, though. I have some other priorities. :rolleyes:

Here's to higher priorities! :toast:

Although I understand the intent in general, it does seem counterproductive to the goals of the game. In an olympic sprint, the runner clearly knows where the competition is, and knows whether or not he needs to kick it up a notch in order to improve his finish. If we are indeed going for the gold and green laurels, then shouldn't we also be free to know whether or not we need to try something different in order to improve our standings? (Perhaps a better analogy would be the Tour de France, since the start and finish times differ, and are compared relatively, rather than with a stopwatch finish as in a sprint.)

Also, isn't part of the intent of SGs to allow the players to learn? While most of the learning is from one's team, there are other more subtle ways to learn from the competition, and the primary of these is from comparing scores, and knowing that you need to do something different, with the more drastic score difference indicating a more drastic need to change something. By altering our style of play, we learn. If we don't know that we need to alter our style, then we don't have the opportunity to learn. In Civ, as in a track race, you don't win by tripping up your opponent (well, except maybe for Zola Budd). You learn by comparative scoring, and seeing that you need to get out of the blocks faster for certain variants, or try rushes versus certain of the AI civs. You can't learn the full details until the game is over and you can go back and review the other threads, but do many of us really do that? Then again, with these wonderful (SGoTM) games being back to back, do we have the time or interest to do so? (Then again, we've proven that we're a thorough and methodical - and slow - team... :mischief: ).

I for one, would like to see the scores returned to the chart. Otherwise, it does little for me. Although the graph is nice, you can only compare the extreme upper and lower lines, because of overlays in the middle. Also, restricting the turns to be relative to the most lagging team removes any value to the teams ahead of this bar. There is no reason for them to look at the page at all, except when near the end of the game to see who has or has not finished. In that case, you might as well just not publish it at all.

I would like to see the value of this learning tool returned.

Thank you for listening. :D

RAL: The one flaw in your example.. The ones behind will know where the competition is, the ones ahead (timewise that is), won't know... The problem is that one lagging team will keep it short.. So suggest it's changed to third lowest (timewise) instead of lowest, if possible?

suggest it's changed to third lowest
Today the window is held back by two teams, so you'd like it to be defined by the third slowest team. Next week it may be three, or four. Would you then ask for it to be changed again?

Just my personal opinion: It was much better when we could see all current scores :(

Alan: I thought it was 1 :) Maybe set it to a fraction? 20%? 25%? In my experience,there is usually 2-3 straggler teams, and 2-3 that are far ahead.

I thought it was 1 Grayarea just posted a save at turn 33 (they seem to be playing 11 turn sets :hmm: ). Jeffalammar had only reached turn 29, so they are now determining the cutoff date.

But why should *any* straggler teams get an advantage that others don't have? To use RowAndLive's analogy, they would have an opportunity not open to a runner in a race who is falling behind. They can wait for the race to play out, see how the race leaders perform, and run the earlier laps using a different strategy from that which they would have used.

Sure, the SGOTMs are a great opportunity to learn from each other. So take the time to analyse the piece of the score graph that *is* available to you, to see how earlier decisions might have affected progress. Don't use future progress information to take unfair advantage of a team who has played ahead in the game and shown you what's possible. This is a competition, after all :D

Remember the purpose of the page. It's there to make it easy for you to exchange saves, and to record history, that's all. Of course, the system we have come up with is still open to abuse, but we're just trying to reduce the spoiler knowledge supplied by the page. I recommend we see how this rolls out moving forward before we jump to conclusions about ways to change it.

Today the window is held back by two teams, so you'd like it to be defined by the third slowest team. Next week it may be three, or four. Would you then ask for it to be changed again?

No. I just ask for it to be back the way that it was. If you want to keep some restriction on the finish, then perhaps only display scores below 4000 points (or some other appropriate number). That way you still have the opportunity to learn from the whole game except the finish.

Just my personal opinion: It was much better when we could see all current scores :(
Better for who? Let's ask Team Smackster whether they enjoyed watching others - yes, Xteam was one of them :rolleyes: - knocking themselves out very specifically to beat the target date that was set early on in SGOTM3. I don't usually get to see SirPleb's date in GOTM until I've gone past it.

The graph is basically irrelevant now. I enjoyed being to able to check how our team was doing in comparison to other teams and it was reassuring to know that we were staying right in the middle of the pack. This is my first SGOTM so I don't really understand the spoiler problem but it seem like there should be some alternative to allow the "leaderboard" to remain up to date (or closer to it) without it being a spoiler.

The downloads page will remain censored for now. The graphs are fun, and I miss them too already, but it was not just unfair, but demonstrably unfair before. You only have to read the spoilers for SGOTM3 from when Smacksters team won their variant game. Many of the other variant teams changed tactics to enable them to beat the posted score.

The new system will be monitored for some time and then we can discuss it again.

The congratulations page is up for SGOTM3 BTW. Go look at the sexy new graphics by Misfit. :)

I understand the intention of the change, I just do not agree. You can't keep anyone from downloading the other's team saves or reading their threads. You trust the players and I like that, but you think we abuse the limited knowledge we get from the score graph - strange.

You trust the players and I like that, but you think we abuse the limited knowledge we get from the score graph - strange.
Xteam took advantage of the information from the results page in SGOTM3 , I know 'cos I was there. If we hadn't known Smackster's date and victory condition, both published and visible for many turns before we finished, I very much doubt if we'd have found that extra push to complete one turn ahead of them. But why do you say it was an abuse?

At that time it was legitimate information, publicly available, so there was no "abuse" in using it. To do the equivalent now we would have to cheat, because we'd have to read a thread we're barred from, or look at another team's save, which - althugh MB may not have said so - is clearly not allowed.

The piece of information that really pushed us some in Xteam was the final date and victory condition (deduced by Jason and confirmed by a lurker's comment from a Smackster team member in our thread).
The final scores could just be left off the tables.
We did some guessing also from the intermediate curves, but that wasn't so important. At least I had the impression that nobody believed me, when I tried to deduce from the curve that we still could win the gold.

The same problem with final date could occur in this game, even when limiting it to the date of the slowest few.
20k teams could know exactly what time to beat, though they can not do much about it then.

@klarius: I believed and agreed with your deduction that Smackster were going for domination. It was clear from their high scoring trajectory. I also agreed that we therefore had the best chance of gold if we went for Conquest. Sorry if I didn't make my agreement clear at the time :blush:

The earlier score information was therefore important as it persuaded us to put down the foundations for a fast conquest victory, ignoring territory and growth. Once we knew the date we needed we were able to build on those foundations, and you succeeded in hitting the target. I think the earlier score curve was valuable information, as well as the final date.

I may be because my team is one of the fastest teams (Bede), but I agree with hiding the score to the slow teams. The previous graph would favor the slow teams. If you are stuck with a dilemna of risking something or not, you could stop the game entirely, wait for the other teams to play more turns than you and then base your decision on how the other teams did.

I must admit I am learning a lot by discussing with my teammates. I do not see how looking at the score of other teams helps that much, unless you go read the team thread (which I did a lot in SGOTM3 because I was not playing).

I liked the graphs, every day i watched to see how my team (offa) was doing in comparison to team smackster. It was fun to watch even though i know the firaxis score is pretty insignificant in 5cc until victory is achieved.

For reasons explained enough in this thread, I think it is good to at least hide the finish date of a team until all other teams have passed it or finished before it. The firaxis scores themselves are less important though, certainly in this 5cc game, but also in other sgotm.

Well, this months deliberate mistake was.....

Persia can build MDI in the PTW version of the game. Same stats as immortals of course, but costing 10g more. Thanks to Tarkeel for the catch and for informing me by PM.

The saves can be fixed, but with everybody at different points in the game it wouldn't really acheive much, so I'll leave it.

1.29f is not affected by this lash up.

The limited graphs sucks!

I just log on a work computer and read the darn threads and make precious decisions in the namesake of our team :gripe:

That was a joke, I don't even have a job!

I can't possibly see, how anyone can outscore an other team by just looking at a graph. We do well...at least we did until the fog cursed us all.

I played the other games with different crews, but I couldn't detect any stuff that deterred us in any directions regarding the graphs. If one team or more did so, it's pretty clear to me that they found another way to find "facts". Anyone that knows me, can say I'm a fair and honest player and I believe my team-mates are as well.

Of course with this valiant approach to the game, I consider all teams fair.

So as a middle way here, why not let the darn graph stand to at least 500AD? After that we can hide whatever and especially finish dates. Not that anyone will win it before that anyways, with the 5 city limit.

We want more fun that waiting for our turn. For the first time "my" team seem to do something right and you take away the fun of gloating?

Shame.

Hehe... I'm tempted to open a poll. I am willing to be persuaded that another solution would be better.

Hehe... I'm tempted to open a poll. I am willing to be persuaded that another solution would be better.Please define "better".

Would it be "better" to have complete secrecy between the different teams (e.g. password-protected threads, no public posts at all)?

I don't think so. For me, "better" also means more fun, more entertaining. Therefore I propose to publish scores more than you currently do.

OK.... So lets define some of the options for the poll.

1. Put it back the way it was.
2. Just leave out the data from the teams final submission from the table.
3. Allow teams to decide for themselves whether they want their data included.
4. Keep the new system.
5. Show data up to a specific date and then censor it after that.

What else?

For me, we have two obligations to fulfill. To make the games as enjoyable as possible, and to protect teams from being victimised because of the data that is published. Although it was me that asked for these changes, I agree that the current page is draconian, but I felt forced to act as I could see the same situation repeating itself. At the moment I lean towards option 2, but I want to hear the views of the playing community before I relax the current restrictions.

Interesting! The extension of this logic is that we can't enjoy GOTM/COTM without a similar graph? :hmm:

Interesting! The extension of this logic is that we can't enjoy GOTM/COTM without a similar graph? :hmm:I don't think so. In GOTM/COTM you have a much larger number of competitors, 3 medals, 7 different trophies, lots of information in the spoiler threads (and qsc). It would trivialize SGOTM to just reduce it to the 2 laurels. The graphs add fun and inspire those lagging behind.

Teams that don't want to give too much information to possible competitors just have to play "a little bit" slower. IMHO it is enough to not post the last 2 results of the leading teams.

I don't think so. In GOTM/COTM you have a much larger number of competitors, 3 medals, 7 different trophies, lots of information in the spoiler threads (and qsc). It would trivialize SGOTM to just reduce it to the 2 laurels. The graphs add fun and inspire those lagging behind.
But that information is not available until you have passed the timeframe the spoiler address. Never do you have info in a Gotm that will allow what Klarius was able to do in SGOTM3, and that was too much info not to constitute spoiler info, so as you might have guessed I am for not disclosing team progress:
Well, I like a good challenge. :)
But this was really tough.
I spent over 3 hours on planning before I even moved a unit.
Then I had the plan ready that would allow finishing every civ in 7 turns, if the RNG would give every city on the first try (sometimes with very few cavs attacking).
So there was only one turn slack and I needed it on the Aztecs.

EDIT: Maybe open up spoiler graphs similar to gotm cutoffs. AA-MA-IA. first graph available after team enters medieval, second after entering industrial and third after submitting a finished game.

The way it is right now, the slowest team is the one who gets to see the spoiler info in the graphs for at least the next 20 turns and can try and do what they need to catch the team with that earliest win on the graph.

What I would like to see is that a team can look at their position backwards. You will be able to see where you compare with other teams to that point, but won't be able to see the spoiler info in of those teams ahead of you. If this is done with a referrer check from the team thread then the lurkers can see the whole graph by going into the thread for the team with the latest save.

Only leaving out the finish date won't do much good i think. If a fast team all of a sudden doesn't proceed in date anymore for 2 weeks, i think the finish date is obvious enough.

Best would be to have every team see information of other teams up to 20 turns before the date they currently reached. This is probably the most work to implement, and probably still requires some trust in the players although of course you can see what IP visited what site, but you probably don't want to be checking that continuously.

So i'd vote either leave the new system, or make it so every team can see up to 20 turns before their current date.
So you can see another teams finish date once you passed it by 20 turns. No way you can beat there score then.

To simplify the voting/polling process why don't we have each team cast a single vote.

On a topic related to spoiler info: Will there be spoiler threads for SGOTM4 and what will be the criteria for the first one? I'm just thinking ahead of writing up a team summary for the first spoiler...

As the namesake for the current long pole (Sorry about that, we deliberatly started off with a slow deliberate pace, but we expect it to pick up as we get a bit farther along. )

1. I think that the 20 turn preview is just fine. There is really very little you can do in 20 turns to change your finish date. A change to a different condition would be difficult in this situation.

2. That said, IMO it is unnessary to restrain data that way. In almost every case, a team has selected a victory condition and is going to try to get their best date possible.
The only problem in SGOTM3 was NOT the information on the submission page. What went wrong was that a team failed to choose the optimum condition for getting the "high score." Then information was leaked out that caused a team to realize that it wasn't the best condition to go for.

All of the information necessary to decide on the correct victory condition was available before the game started. At any point that someone actually posed the question, "What victory condition makes it easiest to beat the best date?", the infomation was there. The only thing that happened in SGOTM3 was that teams that should have asked that question in the beginning, were prompted to ask it because another team finished.
Because of this, I think the only thing that should change is that we don't release the "victory condition" of finished games until we are done. This would be perfectly fair since anyone who is done with the game can legally go look at other threads and get the info.

No, often you continuously have the choise between risky and solid.

Imagine:
You need to take one more city for victory.
It is most likely defended by 2 pikemen since every city you took last 20 turns were so as well. The city is on a hill.
You have 2 knights standing right next to it.
3 more knights are on their way to the city, they will arive in 5 turns.
Your battle calculator estimates a 17% chance your 2 knights will win. If they lose, the pikes will heal and you will be in a similar position 5 turns from now.
If you wait for the other 3 knights to arive, you will have over 80% chance to win.

Normally most people would choose the safe way and wait to win in 5 turns.

If however you know another team won in 3 turns, most people would take the guess and have 17% chance to be fastest rather than having no chance at all.

There is another way to insure we get a longer part of the graph: :whipped: the slower teams! :D

:joke:

There is another way to insure we get a longer part of the graph: :whipped: the slower teams! :D
As a member of the slowest team - i say, yes please!! ;)

The First spoiler for SGOTM4 has been posted.

If you meet the following requirements you may hit the link at the bottom of this post.

Rules for Posting in and Viewing this thread

1. Your team must be researching a middle age tech.
2. You must have the complete map of the starting landmass.
3. A nominated team member must have posted a summary of the teams game to the limit of this spoiler.
4. No discussion is permitted of any contact made from other continents.
5. No discussion is permitted of any Middle Age resource locations.

REMEMBER: Wait until your teams' summary has been posted before reading or posting in this thread yourself.

SGOTM4 - Spoiler1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=101556)

Questions on spoiler info for spoiler 1:

If we enter the Middle ages but are researching Monarchy for a while should/can these turns be included in the spoiler summary until we start research on a MA tech?

Should images be modified so that they do not show locations of other continents? IE: the mini-map at the bottom of the screen shot shows outlines of other continents. Is this ok?

If a civ from another continent finds us or founds a city on our continent can I mention the name of the other civ?

To save the busy people some work:

-Monarchy doesn't need to be completed.
-edit out the minimap
-call them Other civ 1 and other civ 2 or something like that. not the names.

To save the busy people some work:

-Monarchy doesn't need to be completed.

Never mind. We will just include the turns while we were researching Monarchy as no real additional spoiler info occured during this time.

I understand that Monarchy dosn't need to be completed as its an optional tech. We chose to complete monarchy before researching any MA techs and the spoiler said we had to be researching a MA tech (not that we could be researching). So the basic question was: given that Monarchy doesn't need to be completed, can/should we include those turns when we were researching monarchy?

You don't have to stress too much about this MOTH. The intent is that you do not discuss what techs the scientific AI get, which techs you research first, the location of new era resources and that kind of thing. If by describing stuff that happened some turns in to the MA you complete a story without spoiling the game for other people who qualify for this spoiler, then go ahead.

A question for mad-bax:

Did you change/re-compute the Jason target dates of GOTM28, because Carthage is not religious?

Actually, I have both sets of dates - they are generated automatically when I upload a start to the server. I did consider publishing the new ones, but decided against it since having two sets of dates, however carefully explained and separated would lead to confusion and acrimony. After last month I have gone for simplicity. You will have to content yourself with my assurance that the differences do not materially affect the Gold Laurel competition, and since everyone is playing the variant, will not affect the Green Laurel competition either.

FWIW, apart from SGOTM1, the Jason "values" for the SG games have all been different to a minor extent from the original GOTMs, and I decided from the beginning to stick with the original.

In the future, where old maps are "revisited" it would of course be possible to play to the new parameters which take account of any changes I make. I would invite discussion of this.

When I look at the Team Summary on the submission page, it is easy to conclude that team offa has an 860AD conquest win and team Bede a 1780AD 20k victory.

Thus I fail to understand the value of score cutoff date in the graph. :confused:

Well, we will just have to think of something cleverer then won't we? :)

I would like to have the following rules:
Publish all information until 10AD. I assume, nobody will win till this date and it gives a nice competitive edge to see how you perform relative to the other teams - meaningful for the final outcome or not.
After 10AD, do NOT publish information about the last 2 posts of each team, regardless of whether it is a win/loss or not.

Or simply put NA as year of the save for each team pass the cutoff date.

The sort also shows that team offa has a lower "turns after Jason date" than us (team Bede). We can always know if a team has finished when the latest post is a week old. I think the sort should be based on the last score visible in the graph.

Now that our team has finished, can we look at the threads of other teams?

Yes you can.

I have posted the second spoiler for SGOTM4 >>HERE<< (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=102912)

Please do not hit the link until your team has completed the game and submitted its' final save to the server.

Actually, I have both sets of dates - they are generated automatically when I upload a start to the server. I did consider publishing the new ones, but decided against it since having two sets of dates, however carefully explained and separated would lead to confusion and acrimony. After last month I have gone for simplicity. You will have to content yourself with my assurance that the differences do not materially affect the Gold Laurel competition, and since everyone is playing the variant, will not affect the Green Laurel competition either.

FWIW, apart from SGOTM1, the Jason "values" for the SG games have all been different to a minor extent from the original GOTMs, and I decided from the beginning to stick with the original.

In the future, where old maps are "revisited" it would of course be possible to play to the new parameters which take account of any changes I make. I would invite discussion of this.

The Jason values used in the submission system differ a lot from what is published in the calculator.
Using the values I found from teams that already submitted, I guestimate 40 turns difference for conquest and 15 turns difference for 20k.
While these values seem more realistic for the easy (due to differential naval movement) map, it would be nice to know such things in advance.

I don't disagree klarius. SGOTM has evolved somewhat from the friendly off the cuff experiment it was not too long ago, and it now comes under the same sort of scrutiny as GOTM. Soon, I will begin to offer custom maps for SGOTM. At that time of course, all of the correct game and Jason parameters will be released with the game.

In a similar vein... this will coincide with a migration to a single fixed Mod, which will be based on the GOTM22/23 mod. There will be a few differences, but they will be discussed in a seperate thread at the appropriate time.

Note that we don't see the Jason parameters for other competition games ahead of time. They are deliberately suppressed as they divulge information about the map.

Yes, I should have made that clear. What I meant was that there would only be one set of Jason parameters which would be calculated in the normal way. Teams will not know the best dates up front of course.

That's fine for GOTM, where the best dates have negligible influence on the competition.
But with the SGOTM system of scoring relative to best date, I think one should give the information.

klarius: Just to put this to bed forever more...

In future, SGOTM games will be new maps that have not been played before. Also the sponsored variant will always specify a single victory condition.

As far as possible, the victory conditions and variants will be mixed up so that builders and warmongers alike will have an equal opportunity to shine.

I have been a little coy about stating this outright in this manner, because it was my hope that the first custom map would coincide with a migration to a "fixed" "set-in-stone" mod for SGOTM. Not wishing to start another storm of protest, I hasten to add that this mod will not have much in it that you have not seen before in GOTM, it's just that every GOTM has a slightly different ruleset and I need to build one with all the Civs, all the correct upgrade paths, all the correct trade rates etc. etc ad nauseum, and this takes some time.

FWIW, this process is fairly well advanced, and I will be opening a discussion thread shortly so that you can all decide what you want in it, and what you don't. I may even start a non-competetive SG with both versions of the mods so that they can be play-tested by people more competent than I. Interested?

I have decided to delay the announcement for SGOTM5 by a few days. There are still too many teams that have not finished, and rather then push people, it would be better to wait.

I hope this doesn't inconvenience people too much. :)

It is a little late to be reporting this, and probably was already discussed at one point or another somewhere, but Babylon was listed as having Scientific and Religious as its traits, but did not recieve a free tech upon entering the Modern Ages. If this was already mentioned, feel free to smack me upside the head.

There were a lot of scientific civs in the game. I did not change any of the traits from the original. Babylons traits were changed by either cracker or ainwood in order to "tweak" the way the game played. Ainwoods CivAssist program will correctly identify the traits of a civ.

You shouldn't take anything for granted in GOTM ;)

Okay. I thought that since the game had its own civolopedia identifying the Babylonians as Scientific that the traits would match up, but I guess that wasn't the case.

The "problem" with scientific civs is, that they skew the game between those playing 1.29 and those playing PtW. In 1.29, the new age free techs are in 95+% monotheism, nationalism, and rocketry. In PtW, the probabilities are much more evenly spread and you can get several techs by donating a number of scientific civs into each new age. This usually is a great advantage, at least for strong players.

Thus IIRC in gotm the scientific trait was mostly removed, except for the humans.

Is the upload page working properly? I posted a final game, but it is showing that Team Bugsy is still in 1880 AD.

Is the upload page working properly? I posted a final game, but it is showing that Team Bugsy is still in 1880 AD.
The final scores are not showing for any team.

In order to limit spoiler information on this page for games in progress, team progress information does not include the final result scores and victory conditions until the game is declared finished.

I will be closing SGOTM4 shortly, and will post the results thread probably Friday.
At the moment I am trying to cope with bug fixing the mess I made of SGOTM5. :(