I have been away for a few months and now that I have returned, I have been reading some of the forums to catch up on new things happening at site.

I'm interested in the HOF.
The submission page doesn't list everything I have read in forums. So I'm kind of confused on what's right and wrong.
I would like to know all the current rules of getting a game into the HOF.
I appreciate any help in this matter, Thank you.:)

First, keep in mind that I am merely the whipping boy around here so what I say is not "official."

Hall of Fame games follow the same rules as the Game of the Month regarding the honor system. What this means is that you may *never* reload your game to replay any move, and you may not take advantage of any known exploits within the game, such as the right-of-passage invasion or the right-of-passage resource denial. Unlike Game of the Month, you may use War Mobilization in Hall of Fame.

All of your Hall of Fame games should be randomly generated worlds with the default ruleset. You can select the world size, type, barbarian aggression, etc. You can set the barbarians to zero, but it is considered a cheesy move. The only custom modifications you are allowed to do to the game is you are allowed to use custom graphic tilesets (such as the watercolor world) and you are allowed to change the colors of the civilizations ... some people just hate being pink. I for one have resisted the diabolical urge to use grey as the Germans now that fascism has been introduced into the game. Da! Mein L33tzor!

You are required to save your 4000bc game and the turn before you win (or lose, because technically you could lose and still have a high score, I guess). It is also customary to save your 10bc game for submission as well.

That's pretty much it. Remember, the goal isn't to see how well you can do period, ... the goal is to see how well you can do by playing with the mistakes you make as you go along.

Originally posted by nihil8r
You can set the barbarians to zero, but it is considered a cheesy move.
Is it? The only two barbarian settings I typically see in these games is either none or sedentary.

Anyway, so far as I know, nihil8r is right about everything else.

Thanks nihil8r for the info.
Just one more question.
Is it okay to use accel. production and if not___WHY?

I like using acc. prod. because it speeds up the game when you play large and huge maps.

Originally posted by Wizard55
Is it okay to use accel. production and if not___WHY?

It is not okay to use accelerated production. The reason is because it does accelerate games across the board. It's a powerful enough feature that it's a setting that needs to be uniform for all players (as compared to variable settings, such as map/civ/barbs, etc).

While we're on the subject, there's several rulings that Aeson has posted over time that I remember and that you may want to know:
-It's perfectly fine to use MapStat to determine the domination limit of a map at 4000bc so you can decide if it's large enough for you or not.
-It's okay to use the spaceship screen in 4000bc to see who your opponents are.
-While War Mobilization is okay to use during an actual war, use of the exploit is not.
-Use of the Great Library exploit is permitted.
-Reloading is usually only permissible under two circumstances, crashes and incidental/premature triggering of Domination. Domination is easy to avoid in Civ/PTW with MapStat. In regards to C3C, I hear MapStat doesn't work for that XP yet.
-AI respawn is an optional settings.
-Culture flipping enabled and Random Seed Preservation are not optional.

Originally posted by nihil8r
...and you may not take advantage of any known exploits within the game, such as the right-of-passage invasion or the right-of-passage resource denial.

I'm not sure these two are forbidden. I remember many players mentioning they were using these tactics in their GOTM-games.

I have yet to complete a GOTM or heavily surf the forums there, but in regards to the HOF forum, I've not heard anything about ROP invasion being against the rules.

I think scout resource denial was ruled against, but I can't remember for sure...

In regards to other exploits, RCP and Palace jumping have been done heavily...

my bad, you CAN use right-of-passage invase but you CAN NOT use right-of-passage resource denial.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/rules2.shtml

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/1st_visit.shtml

"You may not reload the game from a previous save file or an autosave file to replay and change any events that occur in the game. Reloading gives you an artificial knowledge of future events and might allow you to manipulate the outcomes of some random events, but these behaviors will often leave a distinctive signature on your game that can be detected by further review of your submitted save game files."

"To submit a full Game of the Month you need to play the game through to a completed victory of defeat condition. Your submitted game file should be from the last turn before your defeat or the first continuation turn after your victory. You only need to submit the final save file, but every player should retain backups of savegames on or around 2000 BC, 1000 BC, 10 AD, and 1000 AD. The extra savegames may be requested by members of the GOTM staff to help in validating the results of all the submitted games


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/rules2.shtml

"Here is a list of all known exploits and bugs in Civilization III. Green is allowed when playing the GOTM; red is disallowed.

ALLOWED

Right of Passage abuse
Make an agreement of Right of Passage, move your units to their main cities and attack them all at once.

Free palace jump
When disbanding your capitol your palace will appear in the biggest other city. Your former capitol can be rebuilt by the settler it created. This way you've moved you capitol free.

Island block
If you fill the coast of a certain island with units, even non-military, the AI won't be able to land, thus isn't able to conquer that island, until it has marines.

Ship hopping
While at sea, you can unload a ship on the same square where there is another ship and that ship can take over the load. This way you can move your units to any location in one turn. But it takes a lot of effort.

ICS (Infinite City Sprawl)
Build a lot of cities very close next to each other. This way you simply have more cities which are in the beginning just as big as normal.

DISALLOWED

Scout resource denial
Place a scout on a square where there is a resource and in (future) enemy territory. As long as you have peace with them you can leave him there undisturbed and the other will never be able to build a road to it.

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.

Worker dogpile
Let all your workers join a city with a hospital and continue to build workers and let them join that city. There's no size limit so your city will become huge and you loose only one population per turn. All the workers become specialists and add to your score.

Gold mine
You can make cities give wealth and production at the same time. First set the cities to produce wealth. At the beginning of the next turn when another city is done building something else you can go to other cities with the arrows above and change the production of the cities that produce wealth to e.g. some unit. That will get production as well."

Originally posted by superslug

Is it? The only two barbarian settings I typically see in these games is either none or sedentary.

Anyway, so far as I know, nihil8r is right about everything else.

yes. because you guys are wimps who actually have scores in the hall of fame ... *i* only play on raging. :D

I could see the advantages of raging in regards to unit promotions if I were going for a quick victory on a tiny map, but on larger worlds I'd rather expand unimpeded. It seriously slows down the settlers if I have to bother with escorts.

IMHO setting the barbarian activity to none would be dumb, 'cause this also eliminates GH's, which can seriously speed up the ancient age tech pace, which you want to get to steam power, etc. as fast as you can...

I think for a HoF game sedentary is the best option since it, like superslug said allows you to send out your settlers unescorted, which is far faster than building military to protect them as they travel to their destinations....

For me, it partly depends on who I'm playing. I can seriously outpace the AI in expansion in Despotism any day of the week, sadly somehow better than in Republic. When I play the Chinese, I don't mind stalling things since the Rider comes early. However, if I'm playing the Ottomans, a bit of a tech kick doesn't hurt since the Sipahi come later.

the computer usually sends out 1 military unit as an escort for settlers. i do too, but i usually have a town that is just pumping out defenders to bolster the town defense. and i always have my exploring military units running around looking for overlooked huts and towns that have been wounded by the barbarians. because i go after the barbarians do and before the town defenders have had a chance to heal, the barbarians can wound or (even kill) the sole defender of a town or settler, then i move in for the easy kill. in mechwarrior two those were called "targets of opportunity" ;)

also, i exclusively play military nations, so the "scouts" i have running around are always at veteran and elite. it hasn't gotten me on the hof yet but i enjoy it so that's all that matters.

timing a war right after the middle ages is also a strategy i use if my enemy is bordering wilderness. the wilderness barbarian huts will each spawn 20 horsemen, and they will run into your enemy's lands and generally devastate everything they can. sure, that means i'm micromanaging my own borders with spearmen to keep the invaders out, but the enemy won't be able to launch any kind of serious archer or horsemen attack until all those horsemen are dead.

Originally posted by superslug

It is not okay to use accelerated production. The reason is because it does accelerate games across the board. It's a powerful enough feature that it's a setting that needs to be uniform for all players (as compared to variable settings, such as map/civ/barbs, etc).

I have a probelm with your reasoning. Are you saying that Acc.Pro is not uniform with all players because some do not know how to use it. If so, I say that is their probelm. It is a feature of the game that should be learned.

Since it is a feature of the game, IMHO I think it should be allowed. Especially if some exploits and bugs are allowed. Some players don't even know about some of these exploits unless they have been avid members of this site.

So basically what is being said here to get into the HOF at this site is;
Play the game with these rules as set down before you or don't play at all.

I still think Acc. Pro. should be allowed.
"That's just my opinion, I could be wrong" D.M.


BTW, What's Mapstat and where do I get it??

Thanks for listening.;)

The problem with Acc.Production is that you would be done conquering the world a lot sooner. Imaging wipping out all the AIs by 500BC instead of the usual time around 1200AD. In this case, you would have a lot more time to milk than those people who didn't use Acc.Prouction. Also, people without PTW or Conquests do not have this option. If you want to allow Acc.Production, then you must also setup a different HoF list for that too.

Originally posted by Wizard55

BTW, What's Mapstat and where do I get it??
Check the utility section of the creation and customization forums. I'd normally dig up the link in less than five seconds, but I'm visiting family and stuck on their dial-up. :( :cry:

Originally posted by Wizard55
So basically what is being said here to get into the HOF at this site is;
[B]Play the game with these rules as set down before you or don't play at all.
Fair and orderly competition requires structure and rules, I don't see what possible problem there could be with this.

To superslug;

Let me say this, I don't have a probelm with the rules set down for this HOF. I can live with it.:)

I was just wanting to know what the rules where.
Who made the rules? one person? a majority vote?

Since I like playing the devil's advocate:eek:

How come the majority of games we see in the HOF is HUGE???
Seems to me it's a HOF for milkers. :confused:

What about the person who hates to play Huge games??
This person doesn't have much of a chance to get into the hall of Fame playing Standard maps!!!

Anyways I thank everyone for their feedback.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL.

Originally posted by Wizard55


What about the person who hates to play Huge games??
This person doesn't have much of a chance to get into the hall of Fame playing Standard maps!!!




all map sizes are allowed now. you just have to bring up that category on the hof page.

sorry for my ignorance.

Let me open my mouth and insert foot.

Originally posted by Takeo
all map sizes are allowed now. you just have to bring up that category on the hof page.
Indeed. While that won't change that huge maps get the most score, there are plenty of slots to go around, including tiny maps which get their points off of fastest finish.

In regards to who decides the rules, that would be our moderator Aeson. He has personal experience as a former HOF participant and also as a GOTM moderator. We're in good, fair hands.

Originally posted by Wizard55
To superslug;

Let me say this, I don't have a probelm with the rules set down for this HOF. I can live with it.:)

I was just wanting to know what the rules where.
Who made the rules? one person? a majority vote?

Since I like playing the devil's advocate:eek:


Yes, one person! Aeson has the final say on all issues affecting the HoF rules... :)

I'll work on getting a more comprehensive listing of rules together for the HOF pages. I know there are some rules now which aren't clearly specified.

While I do have final say on the rules, input and suggestions are always welcome. :)

Do you think C3C games with patch 1.12 will be allowed?

I'd like to start a C3C HOF game, but I want to be sure it will be accepted. :)

Yes Dave!

The reason I say this is because Aeson posted the following on page three of the C3C HOF thread:
So you may start playing (or saving) C3C games for submission to the HOF. C3C 1.00, C3C 1.02 (is basically the same), C3C Beta (has been announced), and the future C3C patches will all be allowable for submission. Please play your game entirely in one patch though!

How (the hell) can anyone know if games were not done by saving and exploiting "premature" knowledge of the "random" seed???

Can one look into the *.sav files and find that out?
Or are you expecting people to show honor (like we expect politicians, but they always fail)?
This is especially true in HoF games for conquest on small world types.

Please respond on this, Mr, manager.
Mr babaluba mr bababaluba.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
The problem with Acc.Production [.......] people without PTW or Conquests do not have this option.

:confused: I'm confused. I dont have PTW or Conquests but I have the option of Acc. Prod.

Was it added in one of the patches to vanilla civ3?

Can one look into the *.sav files and find that out?
Or are you expecting people to show honor (like we expect politicians, but they always fail)?

Yes, and yes.

U c, the problem is that if u can see some characters in the *.sav file that indicates that the user has saved and loaded, then he can edit the file so u think it was done without savings..

And what about sleeptime savings??
Something is wrong..
Please be specific.

Yes, there are ways to see if a game has been reloaded.

Yes, there are ways to get around this, and we rely on the honor system to some extent.

I think rules that cannot be held should be removed.
This also includes marijuana, drugs tests for athlets and not using saves.

Yes, I don't believe that people did all these high scores without "malicious" saves.. some perhaps.

This is why there is a need for a consistent set of rules that can be held, not just declared.

M I right or m i right?
so please remove this limitation, on which there is no real way to control.

People get away with murder too, perhaps it should be legalized?

Point is, any rule can be broken, and enforcement of any rule can never be perfect. The rules are there to give people a default setting to be able to compare and compete with. Without the rules there is no basis for comparison, and the HOF may as well not exist at all.

Originally posted by Aeson

any rule can be broken, and enforcement of any rule can never be perfect. The rules are there to give people a default setting to be able to compare and compete with. Without the rules there is no basis for comparison, and the HOF may as well not exist at all.

True. But this is exacly why saves should be allowed - most people trying to enter the HoF will try saving and see that it helps.
People that try doing games without it will have lower scores, so the "good guys" are in a disadvantage

Therefor, for all people to be equal, and for the HoF to be worth it's goal, all should be equal - saving should be allowed as a rule.
It would save us all the trouble of guessing if some guy really made his high score or is "faking". :)

It would save us all the trouble of guessing if some guy really made his high score or is "faking".

There is a fundamental flaw with your argument. First you say that reloads can be edited. Allowing reloads will not do anything to stop people from file editing (which can seriously alter the games in ways a reloader could never dream of). The problem would still remain. Specifically that the 'bad guys' could get away with something the 'good guys' couldn't.

You could say that we allow file editing, but then the games become absolutely worthless.

So we are left with two options. Make rules and hope we can enforce them, and that people will play by them. Or, give up any chance of having a competitive and comparative environment.

If you can get past the need to know whether or not other people are cheating, and just accept that you are ultimately competing against yourself, the game will become more enjoyable. If you insist on the mind-set that unknown cheaters are out there, you will never enjoy the game fully because of your paranoia. Regardless of whether people are cheating or not, or what the rules are.

Right, the editing problem remains even if the rules change..
Why o y don't we live in a perfect world??

I am sooo sad I can't continue reloading vs. an AI.
And I'm sooo sure that any guy who did conquest in 3600BC must be entirely luck or entirely editing...

.........unless you're gonna take up chess (THE Perfect Game), tune your brain to either thinking about the Joy of Life (viz. Having Fun) OR how to top the HOF..............you obviously have a Great Brain! ;)

If you study this site, you WILL find the answer on how to win by Conquest in 3600BC, for example, without cheating. Yes, there is a LOT of luck involved in the Map generated AND the starting position...........AND with the new Map Generator program (See my Signature) from Moonsinger & Dianthus.......I think the HOF Highest scores will only get Higher!

EMan
P.s. I have no idea how to edit a file!........heck, I haven't even had time to play with the Civ Editor!....too busy Playing! :)

u're right, the hacking (editing sav files in this case) is a non-solved phenomena in computers, and we should try to enjoy the HoF and the game as it is.

I'm trying to read all the important articles in this site, and come back to civ3, since Warcraft3 causes me too much anxiety..
I have an anxiety disorder, and have 2 cool a little and I enjoy civ very much... all 3 of them... for years now.

I will do many independent games to try to break the HoF after I read the articles and install the utilities (I saw many..).

B well from Israel,
Chaim.