Do you prefer GOTM games that reflect actual history???

I don't really care about the historical corectness of the GotMs.

sometimes it is nice, but not every month.

It's nice to have some aspects reflecting real geography or history, but it's not a big deal. Little things are fun to spot. For example, in GOTM20/Spain the city I founded on my first iron supply happened to be named Toledo, which is the historical centre for fine metal working in Spain. But that was a coincidence, and I doubt if it could be built into the game. The GOTM 24 map's similarity to the real geography of Japan and Korea is interesting, but I don't think it's feasible to set the game up as a re-enactment of the actual history of Japan.

Yes, it's nice to find a few similarities here and there.
But I wouldn't like too close a resemblance with any historical or geographical situation -I feel that would be a constraint on the GOTM design, and might make it more predictable.

I voted yes, but I guess my answer would be closer to "I appreciate" than "I prefer". I do think it should be an occasional thing, but I certainly have enjoyed the thought and effort that went into several of the past designs. Even the past GOTM26, which obviously wasn't a "historical" map, still gave some of the feel by having asian neighbors, and Takeda (Japan) as a nearby island. But I agree it shouldn't be such a part of GOTM that it restricts the variety of the games, or gives the player too much pre-knowledge.

Recent GOTMs have shown a flavour of some of the aspects that have shaped the nations involved without making the games predictable. IMO it's about maintaining the balance between trying to reflect a particular historical theme and keeping the scenario fresh.

Originally posted by Justus II
I voted yes, but I guess my answer would be closer to "I appreciate" than "I prefer".

Exactly what I was thinking. Actually, playing some scenarios from C3C for gotm might be of interest but then, the surprise and unknown map/resource brings up a lot of fun.

Originally posted by Tone
Recent GOTMs have shown a flavour of some of the aspects that have shaped the nations involved without making the games predictable. IMO it's about maintaining the balance between trying to reflect a particular historical theme and keeping the scenario fresh.

I think Tone has it right. General historic references are a nice touch that help frame the context of the game. The game itself should contain problems to be overcome that relate to the history of the civ involved. I think Cracker had a good sense of history and using it in the game design.

The scenarios in C3C are very ambitious, with unique tech trees, civs and all. This reflect the conditions of an age and its living conditions, which is nice and even educational. It is a very different thing to play with a historical map. If the map is upside down or rotated in some other way, it's very hard to see where you are in relation to your rivals in the beginning of the game, but later when you've figured it out, the exploration part can become predictable.

I really don't know how to vote.

I agree with Karasu, Justus II and Tone and others here. I appreciate the games that are guided or influenced by history and real world geography. This adds considerable interest, but some significant changes and surprises are needed to keep some of the mystery and unpredictability that you get from random maps.

That's what made Cracker's games so enjoyable for me, and I always appreciated the thought and hard work that he put into his games.

I agree with all. A flavor adds to the "standard" random map. But I would hate to play on predictable map / resources.
Most of the fun is by unexpected and discovered challenge of the map / resources.

I must admit that I am very surprised so far with the result of the poll. I would of guessed that most players would of enjoyed the Historical theme that Cracker has been thrusting us for the last 6 months, which would of translated to a larger percentage of people voting "yes"

I think you are perhaps misinterpreting the results because you did not give sufficient thought to how you phrased the question and the poll options.

The indications are that most people do not really want to play historic repeats in a semi-competitive or comparative environment. Games that have some sort of historical flavor without being pre-known maps of the world tend to be very well received while respammulated acurate world and historic maps just provide an opportunity to zombie through the game knocking of known historic rivals and conquering preknown resource positions.

The challenge is to build a game that lets you feel like "the Romans" whwn the Romans were the Romans and not just to play like the Romans with prescience and a full world reconceived or preconceived knowledge of the whole world that the Romans would not have had.

There is a subtle but signicant difference here.

Originally posted by cracker
... The challenge is to build a game that lets you feel like "the Romans" whwn the Romans were the Romans and not just to play like the Romans with prescience and a full world reconceived or preconceived knowledge of the whole world that the Romans would not have had. ...

That would be very interesting. For example, taking tech tree, victory conditions, and unit specifics from C3C Rise of Rome scenario (just to minimize downloads and make it easier to setup) and play it on an unknown map but with similar layout. Sounds like alternative history fantasy. BTW, I like that especially the Ken Hood/Dave Duncan Longdirk series.

Also, for me it is a frustrating thing that usually on higher difficulty there is not enough time to play with ancient age/early medeival units. The tech pace even if slowed down just runs too fast to be able to use these units. Setting a customized tech tree or turn limit/victory conditions like in C3C is a very pleasant experience.

On the other hand, in most games warfare basically ends with cavalry and it would be of great interest to have something like WWII or WWIII-Civ2 scenario to fully exploit the modern warfare and all the new things in C3C. Creating such a balanced and well-playable scenario is a huge work though.

However, how it can be organized with PTW or Civ3?

Originally posted by akots
[BOn the other hand, in most games warfare basically ends with cavalry and it would be of great interest to have something like WWII or WWIII-Civ2 scenario to fully exploit the modern warfare and all the new things in C3C. Creating such a balanced and well-playable scenario is a huge work though.

However, how it can be organized with PTW or Civ3? [/B]
Have a look a the MB4 Succession Games. Three teams have replayed the GOTM24 map, but with a different civ courtesy of Cracker, competing against each other for a Conquest victory and maximum Jason score. The result has been an absolutely fascinating game, and none of the teams have been able to conclude it with Cavalry by the end of the Medieval. So it has provided a terrific Industrial Age warfare scenario.

Beautiful, Cracker. Thanks a million.

Originally posted by AlanH
... Have a look a the MB4 Succession Games. Three teams have replayed the GOTM24 map ...

I started to follow these SG but then stopped and now search is disabled and I cannot find them. Can you please post a link ...

Originally posted by akots


I started to follow these SG but then stopped and now search is disabled and I cannot find them. Can you please post a link ...
They're still current games in the SG forum. We still don't know who will win. Team A is nearly finished, and I suspect the others are in the final stages as well.

MB4A - Civ3 Roster A (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67818)

MB4B - Civ3 Roster B (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67819)

MB4PTW - the PTW Roster (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67817)

Originally posted by AlanH
... Have a look a the MB4 Succession Games. ...

Thanks for the links. I took a look at them for ... about 2 hours straight ... beautiful reading. However, gameplay is obviously not that optimal. Bet that Bremp/Qitai/Snaga can finish this one with cavalry. And it looks like the players try to stick to the RBC rules more that to GOTM rules. And this makes winning early more difficult because GOTM rules leave substantial room for AI abuse.

Anyhow, it is a good idea to play some games by the RBC rules to experience modern warfare. Or 5CC on Deity. Or take somebody of an MB4 team as SG partner. However, the discussion is about GOTM and GOTM rules.

Originally posted by akots


Thanks for the links. I took a look at them for ... about 2 hours straight ... beautiful reading. However, gameplay is obviously not that optimal. Bet that Bremp/Qitai/Snaga can finish this one with cavalry.
Well, we're mere mortals, of course, but there are three teams here with some pretty experienced players among the ranks and we're having a ball. I'd be very interested to see how the games could be improved that much - your next mission, should you choose to accept it :rolleyes:

And it looks like the players try to stick to the RBC rules more that to GOTM rules. And this makes winning early more difficult because GOTM rules leave substantial room for AI abuse.Not the A team. We've beeen abusing the AI for a couple of thousand years!

I think that the MB4 games are a good example of what cracker is talking about. That game feels like an oriental game because of things as trivial as leaderheads, and just changing tech names without changing their function. The new units also add flavour and give the player something else to think about since ADM values and other things have been changed. The map itself is extremely well designed too. Again it adds flavour because it "looks like" a Japanese/Korean map, but because the map is flipped and the player didn't know that (in the original GOTM24) then the discovery part of the game is still there.

Whether or not the game could have been finished with cavalry by the elite is irrelevent. The games have to be playable by as many people as possible. If the difficulty of the game was such that only 11 out of 150 people could win it (which has happened) then many people would lose interest. The GOTM staff help people to play at a level that is enjoyable to them by publishing 3 saves of varying difficulty.

Despite akots assertion that the gameplay in these games has not been "very optimal", it is clear that the three teams are well matched and have enjoyed the game enormously. This truly amazing experience has been due mainly to the fact that the game is of a far superior quality than can be achieved from a randomly generated map out of the box.

I genuinely feel quite sorry for the people who didn't take the opportunity to play in these games (and BTW all I did was start the thread and I take absolutely no credit for them whatever).

I hope that a similar event can be organised in the near future.

Originally posted by mad-bax
... I genuinely feel quite sorry for the people who didn't take the opportunity to play in these games ...

I also feel sorry for inability to play in SG. They are so much fun even with "not so optimal play"!!! However, playing SG requires certain dedication like finish 10 or 20 turns in 48 hours. And many people just don't have enough time for that. I also like RBC rules much better than GOTM. It's much harder to play more honestly but in the end you feel better even having lower score.

And these three MB4 games are indeed a great pleasure to read and a good example of everything! On the other hand it looks like the gameplay took huge amount of time because of map size which puts these SG outside of GOTM. It would have been Game Of The 3 Months for most of the people. The Sengoku conquest in C3C is very similar in strategy and progress up to the modern age.

Edited: There still no clue at what would happen to GOTM without cracker...